The Williamite Wars in Ireland

The Comprehensive Defeat of the Jacobite Irish in the Williamite conflict, a component within the pan-European Nine Years' War, prevented the exiled James II from regaining his English throne, ended realistic prospects of a Stuart restoration and partially secured the new regime of King William III and Queen Mary created by the Glorious Revolution. The principal events - the Siege of Londonderry, the Battles of the Boyne and Aughrim, and the two Sieges and Treaty of Limerick - have subsequently become totems around which opposing constructions of Irish history have been erected.

John Childs is Professor of Military History and Director of the Centre for Military History in the University of Leeds