Battle of Saintfield (1798)
Who Fought
United Irish rebels: over 1,000. British: approximately 300, comprising Newtownards Yeomanry cavalry and approximately 270 York Fencibles, with two light cannon.
History & Significance
The Battle of Saintfield was a short but bloody clash in County Down, Northern Ireland. The battle was the first major conflict of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in Down. The battle took place on Saturday, 9 June 1798.
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 the radical Presbyterian minister and United Irishman Thomas Ledlie 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 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 Stapylton 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, Stapylton's force used the situation to march to safety. The following day the York Fencible Regiment of Foot, Stapylton had left to garrison Newtownards repulsed a rebel attack led by David Bailie Warden but then withdrew through Comber to re-join their commander in Belfast.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Saintfield (1798) lies on Gala Group, bedrock that formed in the Telychian. The rock here is wacke.
The rebels' victory owed much to a carefully laid ambush in difficult terrain. Scouts sent forward by Stapylton declared the road ahead safe, yet the Irish insurgents, mostly armed with pikes, were concealed behind a dense hedge on one side of the road and in demesne woods rising up the slope on the other. When the redcoats marched into this wooded defile they were overwhelmed in fierce hand-to-hand combat. One veteran York Fencible who survived and had fought in wars across Europe later declared that he had never before witnessed such fierce fighting, recalling that 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 Stapylton was able to bring his cannon to bear, using canister and grapeshot to blunt the rebel attack sufficiently to extract his surviving troops.
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- Battle of Saintfield · Wikipedia
- Saintfield · Wikipedia