Williamite War in Ireland The Williamite War in Ireland ( , meaning " war of the two kings " ) was a conflict between Jacobites ( supporters of Catholic King James II ) and Williamite s ( supporters of Protestant Prince William of Orange ) over who would be King of England , Scotland and Ireland . It is also called the Jacobite War in Ireland or the Williamite – Jacobite War in Ireland . The cause of the war was the deposition of James II as King of the Three Kingdoms in the " Glorious Revolution " of 1688 . James was supported by the mostly Catholic " Jacobites " in Ireland and hoped to use the country as a base to regain his Three Kingdoms . He was given military support by France to this end . For this reason , the War became part of a wider European conflict known as the Nine Years ' War ( or War of the Grand Alliance ) . Some Protestants of the established Church in Ireland also fought on the side of King James . James was opposed in Ireland by the mostly Protestant " Williamites " , who were concentrated in the north of the country . William landed a multi - national force in Ireland , composed of English , Scottish , Dutch , Danish and other troops , to put down Jacobite resistance . James left Ireland after a reverse at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and the Irish Jacobites were finally defeated after the Battle of Aughrim in 1691 . William defeated Jacobitism in Ireland and subsequent Jacobite risings were confined to Scotland and England . However , the War was to have a lasting effect on Ireland , confirming British and Protestant rule over the country for over a century . The iconic Williamite victories of the Siege of Derry and the Battle of the Boyne are still celebrated by the ( mostly Protestant ) Unionist community in Northern Ireland today . Glorious Revolution . The war in Ireland began as a direct consequence of the Glorious Revolution in England . James , who was a Roman Catholic , attempted to introduce freedom of religion for Catholics and bypass the English Parliament to introduce unpopular laws . For many in England , this was an unpleasant reminder of the rule of Charles I , whose conflict with the Parliament ended with the outbreak of the English Civil War . The breaking point in James ' relationship with the English political class came in June 1688 when his second wife gave birth to a son , which opened the prospect of an enduring Catholic Stuart dynasty . This fear led some political figures to conspire to invite William III of Orange , stadtholder of the main provinces of the Dutch Republic , to invade England . William had indicated that such an invitation would be a condition for a military intervention , which he desired primarily for military and strategic reasons . The Dutch Republic was at the brink of war with the France of Louis XIV , then the greatest military power in Europe . English Stuart Kings Charles II and James II had fostered a close alliance with France since the English Restoration , and William wanted to detach England ' s resources of men , money , and arms from France and put them at the disposal of his League of Augsburg . William invaded England in November 1688 . William ' s invasion fleet was aided by favourable weather ( the " Protestant wind " ) that gave him weather gage over the British fleet , allowing him to outmaneuver them and land unopposed . James fled to France after putting up only a token resistance . In 1689 , Prince William and his wife Princess Mary Stuart became co - regents as King William III and Queen Mary II of England . However , while James II was unpopular in England , he had widespread popular support in Ireland . The Irish were almost all Roman Catholics and had fought en masse for the Stuart dynasty in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the 1640s , in the hope of securing religious toleration and political self - government . They had been defeated by 1652 and were punished by the English Commonwealth regime with land confiscations and penal legislation . They were largely disappointed with the failure of King Charles II to completely reverse this situation in the Act of Settlement 1662 . James had given them some concrete concessions in the 1680s by appointing an Irish Catholic , Richard Talbot , 1st Earl of Tyrconnell as Lord Deputy of Ireland , and by re - admitting Catholics as Army officers and into other public offices . When James fled England in 1688 he looked to Ireland to muster support for a re - conquest of his Three Kingdoms . In 1689 he held what became known as the " Patriot Parliament " in Dublin which reversed the confiscations of the 1650s and confirmed his support from most of the Irish landed gentry . Ironically , while Irish Catholics supported King James en masse , the Papal States had joined the League of Augsburg . Pope Innocent XI had lent William of Orange 150 , 000 Scudi for war purposes through his family ' s bank before his death in 1689 . Campaign in Ulster . After William ' s landing in England , James ' Lord Deputy in Ireland , Richard Talbot , 1st Earl of Tyrconnell took action to ensure that all strong points in Ireland were held by garrisons of the newly recruited Irish Catholic army , loyal to James . The northern province of Ulster , which had the heaviest concentration of English and Scottish settlers , was the only part of Ireland where Talbot encountered significant resistance . By November 1688 , only the walled city of Derry had a Protestant garrison . An army of around 1 , 200 men , mostly " " Redshanks " " ( slang for kilt - wearing Highlanders ) , under Alexander MacDonnell , 3rd Earl of Antrim , was slowly organised ( they set out on the week William of Orange landed in England ) . When they arrived on 7 December 1688 the gates were closed against them and the Siege of Derry began . While the Jacobites appeared to have great advantages in terms of numbers in Ireland , in fact , the troops raised by Tyrconnell were mainly hastily conscripted peasant bands , most of them poorly armed and trained . Nevertheless , a Jacobite force under Richard Hamilton routed a Protestant Williamite militia in an encounter at Dromore , County Down ( known as the Break of Dromore ) on 14 March 1689 and occupied eastern Ulster . When James was deposed and fled to France , King Louis XIV of France ( already at war with William of Orange ) supported him with troops and money to help him regain his crown , though he stipulated that the French troops he sent to Ireland would have to be made good by the sending of the same number of Irish recruits to France . On 12 March 1689 James landed in Kinsale , Ireland , with 6 , 000 French soldiers . He first marched on Dublin , where he was well received and , with a Jacobite army of Catholics , Protestant Royalists and French , then marched north , joining the Siege of Derry on 18 April . James found himself leading a predominantly Irish Catholic movement , and on 7 May he presided over an Irish Parliament composed almost entirely of Catholic gentry . He reluctantly agreed to the Parliament ' s demand for an Act declaring that the Parliament of England had no right to pass laws for Ireland . He also agreed , again reluctantly , to restore to Irish Catholics the lands confiscated from their families after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland , by confiscating the lands of those ( predominantly Protestants ) who opposed him and supported William . This parliament was later named the Patriot Parliament by Irish nationalists . British Williamite warships arrived off Derry to relieve the besieged city on 11 June , but refused to risk shore guns until , ordered by Marshal Frederic Schomberg , they broke through and ended the siege on 28 July 1689 . In nearby Enniskillen , just south of Derry , armed Williamite civilians drawn from the local Protestant population organised a formidable irregular military force . Operating with Enniskillen as a base , they carried out raids against the Jacobite forces in Connacht and Ulster . A poorly trained Jacobite army led by Justin MacCarthy , Viscount Mountcashel assembled at Dublin and marched against them . On 28 July 1689 , MacCarthy ' s force was defeated at the Battle of Newtownbutler . Many of the Jacobites ' troops fled as the first shots were fired , and up to 1500 of them were hacked down or drowned when pursued by the Williamite cavalry . Partly as a result of this defeat and partly because of a major Williamite landing in the east of the province , most Jacobite troops were withdrawn from Ulster and encamped near Dundalk . Schomberg ' s campaign . On 13 August 1689 William ' s army under Marshal Frederick Schomberg , 1st Duke of Schomberg landed at Ballyholme Bay in County Down and , after capturing Carrickfergus , marched unopposed to Dundalk . James ' s viceroy Tyrconnell , commanding the main Jacobite army , blocked Schomberg ' s passage southwards but did not give battle . The two armies remained encamped opposite each other in cold , wet weather for several weeks before they withdrew to winter quarters . The Williamites lost several thousand men from disease in this campaign , even though they did not fight a single major engagement with the Jacobites . Moreover , they found themselves harassed throughout the winter of 1689 and in the following two years by Irish Catholic guerrillas known as " rapparees " . Schomberg ' s troops continued to die from disease in their winter quarters because of the harsh weather and poor food supplies . The lack of food was partly from bad management , but also because the Jacobites devastated the countryside as they retreated . The local civilian population also suffered terribly from this tactic . Battle of the Boyne . Impatient with Schomberg ' s slow progress , William decided to take charge . He arrived with a fleet of 300 ships at Belfast Lough on 14 June 1690 . He landed at Carrickfergus , having mustered an army of 36 , 000 soldiers ( including English , German , Dutch , Danish , and French Huguenot troops ) , which then marched south towards Dublin . After some resistance near Newry the Jacobites withdrew to the south bank of the River Boyne , where they took up a defensive position at the village of Oldbridge , near Drogheda . On 1 July , William attacked their position , fording the Boyne at several places , forcing the Jacobites to retreat to avoid being surrounded . ( As a consequence of the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1753 , the battle is now commemorated on 12 July ) . The Battle of the Boyne was not militarily decisive and casualties on both sides were not high — around 1500 Jacobites and 500 Williamites were killed . However , it proved enough to collapse James ' s confidence in victory in Ireland . He rode ahead of his army to Duncannon , and from there returned to exile in France . Because he deserted his Irish supporters , James became known in Ireland as " Séamus an Chaca " or " James the Shit " . The Jacobite army retreated to Dublin , little damaged , but demoralised and badly hit by desertion . The next day , they abandoned the city and marched to Limerick . The Williamites marched into Ireland ' s capital on the same day , and occupied the city without a fight . News of the defeat at the Boyne contributed to the Scottish Jacobites abandoning their struggle . William ' s victory at the Boyne , taken together with James ' flight , might have been the end of the war in Ireland . However , William published very harsh peace terms in Dublin , excluding the Jacobite officers and the Irish Catholic landed class from the pardon he offered to Jacobite foot - soldiers . As a result , Irish Jacobite leaders felt they had no choice but to fight until they received guarantees their lives , property , and civil and religious rights would be respected in a peace settlement . First Siege of Limerick . As a result of Williamite intransigence , the war continued . The Irish Jacobites retreated to Limerick , where they repulsed a Williamite assault , inflicting heavy casualties , in August 1690 . The Williamites retreated from the west of Ireland but consolidated their hold on the south of the country in late 1690 . Their forces , under the Earl of Marlborough , took the southern ports of Cork and Kinsale The Irish Jacobites ' position was now defensive , holding a large enclave in western Ireland , including all of the province of Connacht , bounded by the River Shannon . The Jacobites ' successful defence of Limerick encouraged them to believe they could win the war with help from France ( though many of the French troops sent with James were withdrawn after his flight ) . William left Ireland in late 1690 , entrusting command of the Williamite forces to the Dutch general Godert de Ginkell . Athlone , Aughrim and the Second Siege of Limerick . Ginkell broke into Connacht via the town of Athlone , after a bloody siege there . He then advanced on the key Jacobite strongholds of Galway and Limerick . The Marquis de St Ruth , the Jacobite ' s French commander , attempted to block Ginkell ' s advance at Aughrim , County Galway , but Ginkell ' s army inflicted a crushing defeat on the Irish at the Battle of Aughrim , where the Jacobites lost up to 8000 men — about half their army — killed , wounded , or taken prisoner . St Ruth himself , the Jacobite General , was among the dead . Ginkell took Galway , which surrendered on terms . He went on to besiege Limerick . The Siege of Limerick ended with Irish surrender on 23 September 1691 , when Patrick Sarsfield , despairing of any hope of victory , overthrew the French officers in command of the city and opened negotiations with Ginkell . Treaty of Limerick . The peace Treaty of Limerick signed on 3 October 1691 offered generous terms to Jacobites willing to stay in Ireland and give an oath of loyalty to William III . Peace was concluded on these terms between Sarsfield and Ginkell , giving toleration to Catholicism and full legal rights to Catholics that swore an oath of loyalty to William and Mary . The Protestant - dominated Irish Parliament refused to ratify the articles of the Treaty in 1697 , and from 1695 on , updated the penal laws , which discriminated harshly against Catholics . Catholics saw this as a severe breach of faith . A popular contemporary Irish saying was , " cuimhnigí Luimneach agus feall na Sassanaigh " ( " remember Limerick and Saxon treachery " ) . The Papacy was an enemy of Louis of France and therefore did not support James in 1691 , but the new Pope Pope Innocent XII changed its policy to support for France , and therefore James , from 1693 . This factor hardened Protestant attitudes towards Catholics and Jacobitism in Ireland . Part of the treaty agreed to Sarsfield demand that the Jacobite army could leave Ireland as a body and go to France . Ships were even provided for this purpose . This event was popularly known in Ireland as the " Flight of the Wild Geese " . Around 14 , 000 men with around 10 , 000 women and children left Ireland with Patrick Sarsfield in 1691 . Initially , they formed the army in exile of James II , though operating as part of the French army . After James ' death , the remnants of this force merged into the French Irish Brigade , which had been set up in 1689 from 6000 Irish recruits sent by the Irish Jacobites in return for French military aid . Long - term effects . The Williamite victory in the war in Ireland had two main long term results . The first was that it ensured James II would not regain his thrones in England , Ireland , and Scotland by military means . The second was that it ensured closer British and Protestant dominance over Ireland . Until the 19th century , Ireland would be ruled by what became known as the " Protestant Ascendancy " , the mostly Protestant ruling class . The majority Irish Catholic community and the Ulster - Scots Presbyterian community were systematically excluded from power , which was based on land ownership . For over a century after the war , Irish Catholics maintained a sentimental attachment to the Jacobite cause , portraying James and the Stuarts as the rightful monarchs who would have given a just settlement to Ireland , including self - government , restoration of confiscated lands and tolerance for Catholicism . Thousands of Irish soldiers left the country to serve the Stuart monarchs in the Irish Brigade of the French Army . Until 1766 France and the Papacy remained committed to restoring the Stuarts to their British Kingdoms , and Irish soldiers in the French service fought on the Jacobite side in the Scottish Jacobite uprisings up to the Battle of Culloden in 1746 . Protestants , on the other hand , portrayed the Williamite victory as a triumph for religious and civil liberty . In Ireland , many in the Protestant community believed that their victory saved their community from massacre and annihilation at the hands of Roman Catholics . For this reason , the battles of the Williamite war are still commemorated by Protestant Unionists in Ulster , principally by the Orange Order on the Twelfth of July