Battle of Dungan ' s Hill The Battle of Dungan ' s Hill took place in County Meath , in eastern Ireland in August 1647 . It was fought between the armies of Confederate Ireland and the English Parliament during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms . The Irish army was intercepted on a march towards Dublin and destroyed . Although it is a little - known event , even in Ireland , the battle was very bloody ( with over 3000 deaths ) and had important political repercussions . The Parliamentarian victory there destroyed the Irish Confederate forces ’ Leinster army and contributed to the collapse of the Confederate cause and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649 . Background . By 1647 , The Irish Catholic Confederation controlled all of Ireland except for Parliamentarian enclaves around Dublin and Cork and a Scottish outpost in Ulster . The previous year they had rejected a treaty with the English Royalists in favour of eliminating the remaining British forces in Ireland . In August 1647 , the Confederate Leinster army under Thomas Preston was attempting to take Dublin from the English Parliamentarian garrison under Michael Jones , when it was intercepted by the Roundheads and forced to give battle . Jones had marched to Trim to relieve the Parliamentarian outpost there at Trim Castle . Preston , who had been shadowing Jones ' movements , attempted to march on Dublin before Jones ' army returned there , but covered only 19 of the 60 or so kilometres ( 12 of the 40 miles ) before being caught at Dungan ' s Hill , where the Confederate forces had to form up for battle . The battle took place near the modern village of Summerhill and along the present main road between Trim and Kilcock . The battle . From a Parliamentarian point of view , victory in this battle was presented to them by the incompetence of the Irish commander . Preston was a veteran of the Thirty Years ' War , where he had been a commander of the Spanish garrison at Leuven , but had no experience of open warfare or handling cavalry . Jones , by contrast , had been a cavalry officer in the English Civil War . As a result , Preston tried to move his cavalry along a narrow covered lane ( site of the present day main road ) , where they were trapped and subjected to enemy fire without being able to respond . Even worse , Preston had placed a large number of his troops in wheat fields over seven feet tall . As a result these troops were unable to see the Parliamentarians until it was too late . With the Confederate army spread out and in confusion , Jones ' troops fell in amongst them causing the demoralised Irish cavalry to flee the field , leaving the remainder of Preston ’ s infantry unsupported . The Confederate army ’ s infantry were primarily equipped with pikes and heavy muskets and trained to stand in tercio s in the Spanish manner . This meant they were difficult to break , but also highly immobile , without cavalry to cover their cumbersome formation when it moved . What was worse , Preston had positioned them in a large walled field , so that when their cavalry had run away , the Parliamentarians could surround and trap them . Some of the Irish infantry , Scottish Highlanders brought to Ireland by Alasdair MacColla , managed to charge and break through Jones ’ men and escape into a nearby bog , where the English cavalry could not follow . Preston and about 2 - 3000 of his regular infantry managed to follow the Highlanders to safety , but the remainder were trapped . What happened next is disputed . The Irish infantry managed to hold off several assaults on their position , before trying to follow their comrades into the safety of the bog . This made them lose their formation and the Parliamentarians got in amongst them and then surrounded them in the bogland . Parliamentarian accounts simply say that the Irish force was then destroyed . Irish accounts , however , claim that the Confederate troops surrendered and were then massacred . One account , by a Catholic friar named O Meallain , says that the corpses of the Irish foot soldiers were found with their hands tied . A recent study ( Padraig Lenihan , " Confederate Catholics at War " , Cork 2001 ) , suggests that the Irishmen probably tried to surrender , but that , according to the conventions of 17th century warfare , this had to be accepted before it entitled them to safety . In this case , it was not accepted and the infantrymen were butchered . Around 3000 Confederate troops and a small number of Parliamentarians died at Dungan ' s Hill . One of the English regimental commanders , Colonel Anthony Hungerford , was shot in the mouth , a wound that invalided him out of the English Army . Most of the dead were Irish infantrymen killed in the last stage of the battle . Those prisoners who were taken were mainly officers , whom the Parliamentarians could either ransom or exchange for prisoners of their own . Richard Talbot ( later Earl of Tyrconnell and Lord Deputy of Ireland , but then a junior cavalry officer ) was among the Confederate prisoners . In the immediate aftermath of the battle , Owen Roe ' s Ulster Army marched through the pass of Portlester Mill to mount an effective rearguard action , routing Jones ' advanced brigade and enabling the survivors of the Leinster army to escape . Jones , fearing O ' Neills army , did not continue the pursuit and returned to Dublin . O ' Neill and his Ulstermen returned four months later to bury the dead Confederates .