Battle of Saintfield The Battle of Saintfield was a short but bloody clash in County Down , in Northern Ireland . The battle was the first major conflict of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in Down . The battle took took place on Saturday , 9 June 1798 . Background . A rebel force , over a thousand strong , converged on a large house owned by the McKee family . The McKees were a family of loyalists , who were unpopular in the region : one year before , they had provided information to the authorities leading to the arrest of a radical Presbyterian minister by the name of Birch and some members of his congregation . The McKees knew that they were unpopular and were thus armed to the teeth . As the house was surrounded , shots were fired from the fortified house , hitting some of the attackers . Gunfire held the insurgents back for a short while , until one of them , a fiddler by the name of Orr , managed to sneak around the back of the house with a ladder , and thence set the roof alight . The house was destroyed , and all eight members of the family inside killed . News of this quickly reached the British forces in the area , and a 300 strong force under Colonel Granville Staplyton , consisting of Newtownards Yeomanry cavalry and 270 York Fencibles , as well as two light cannon , marched to the region . The battle . The rebels , however , had anticipated the move and were waiting in ambush . Stapylton saw the road ahead twisting into woods , and ordered a pair of scouts to check for anything suspicious . The men do not seem to have been particularly vigilant , as when they returned they declared that the road ahead was safe . The redcoats marched into the wooded area , a dense hedge snaking along the road on one side : on the opposite side , the ground steadily rose , with the areas higher up the slope dominated by demesne woods . This provided cover for the Irish . The Irish rebels were mostly armed with pikes and the terrain allowed them to quickly swarm the soldiers on the road below . In the fierce hand - to - hand combat that followed the British forces were overwhelmed . One of the fencibles , a veteran of wars in Europe who managed to survive the attack later stated that he had never before witnessed such fierce fighting : " every man had to fight his way in the best manner he could in opposition to the charged pike and other weapons , to which he had not been accustomed . " Over fifty men were piked to death before Staplyton managed to order the soldiers ; he then brought his cannon into play against the mass of rebels before him , inflicting enough casualties with canister and grapeshot to blunt their attack . In the meantime , Staplytons force used the situation to march to safety . Aftermath . The battle of Saintfield was largely regarded as a victory of the United Irish rebels . Long after , in the 1950s , two skeletons and a sword and bayonet of the York fencibles were found in the area . The rebellion in Down would prove short lived , however - only a few days later the rebel army was slaughtered at the Battle of Ballynahinch . Many of the dead from both sides of the battle were placed in a mass grave within the grounds of the nearby Presbyterian church . Although there is a plaque signifying the location of these graves , the area seems largely neglected with what appears to be temporary vehicle access over the belligerents final resting place . In May 2010 a memorial park was finished and opened . The area has been cleared and landscaped , with several new plaques and information boards being erected . The graves have been refurbished and the headstones relaid .