Essays from The Irish Sword: Ireland and the Crusades

Book excerpt: The first of a projected two-volume survey of Irish military history, this is a facsimile version of the original articles from the Middle Ages to the present day. The articles were first published in the Irish Sword, the journal of the Military History Society of Ireland. The Society was founded in 1949 with the aim of promoting the study of Irish military history, defined as the history of warfare in Ireland and of Irishmen in war. Among the essays on medieval warfare are an account of the part played by Irishmen in the Crusades and an analysis of the military history of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are particularly well represented as warfare was frequent in that period, including the Tudor re-conquest, the rebellion of 1641 and subsequent overflow of the English Civil War into Ireland, and the Williamite war of 1689-91. Writers such as Cyril Falls on Hugh O'Neill, G A Hayes-McCoy on The Army of Ulster 1593-1603 and J G Simms on Cromwell at Drogheda feature in this section. In the part covering the eighteenth century the military exploits of Irish soldiers in foreign armies are examined by Micheline Kerney-Walsh, while Charles Petrie describes the position of Ireland in international strategic thinking in his Ireland in Spanish and French Strategy, 1558-1815. There are two papers on the rebellion of 1798: Richard Hayes The Battle of Castlebar 1798 and Paul Kerrigan's Weapons and Tactics of 1798.