Talk:Battle of the Boyne

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Contents 1 decisive or not? 2 size of the battle 3 an chaca? 4 11 or 12 July?

[edit] decisive or not?

This page states both that the battle was "not militarily decisive" (first para) and that it was "decisive" (second para). Which is it?

Decisive politically but not militarily.

The Boyne was in military terms a tactical defeat for the Jacobites. They were pushed out of a defensive position around the Boyne river and forced to retreat on Dublin. But their losses were realtively light and there was no reason why they could not have regrouped in Dublin. They didn't but instead they regrouped in Limerick, where they won a victory when William tried to take it.

However, James decided that all was lost and fled to France on the day after the battle. The upshot of this was that because ofthe Boyne, he lost whatever chance he had of regaining his throne from William. So even though the war in Ireland went on for another year, the Boyne, or to be more precise, James' reaction to the defeat at the Boyne decided the political outcome of the war.

Jdorney 15:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

It was decisive in that James' troops were routed. So as a battle, on its own, I reckon it could be considered decisive. --Mal 01:25, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

No, strictly speaking, a decisive battle is one where one side takes overwhelming casualties and/or is disolved as an effective force. This is not what happened at the Boyne. Only a small portion of the Jacobite army was engaged in the battle. Of those that were engaged, the infantry were relatively easily pushed out of Oldbridge, but not pursued. The Jacobite cavalry put up determined resistance before retreating due to weight of numbers. The Jacobites, half of whose froces had been upriver at Roughgrange for the whole battle, then retreated. If William had managed to either pursue the Jacobite retreat closely, or to cut it off at one of several places such as Duleek or the Naul, then the Boyne wold have been a decisive victory in military terms.

The actual decisive Williamite victory of the war was at Aughrim, a year later. At this battle, the Jacobites lost a total of 8000 men, or nearly half their strength, killed wounded and taken prisoner.

Jdorney 08:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] size of the battle

The casualty figure of the battle must stand as the lowest ever for a battle of such a scale - of the 40 000 or so participants, under 2000 died, mostly as a result of heat exhaustion.

This is not unusual, the biggest and most decisive battle of the English Civil War was the battle of Marston Moor in which about 40,000 men fought and less than 4000 were killed. By this yard stick the Boyne was not a "minor military skirmish". Philip Baird Shearer 17:51, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Granted, the Boyne was not as decisive a battle as its reputation suggests, but over 2000 dead and more wounded in a space of a few square kilometres is not a "minor skirmish". In terms of numbers engaged, the Boyne was actually the biggest ever battle in Ireland. Also, most casualties were from heat exhaustion?? Utter nonsense. I'm going to have to remove that I'm afraid!

me aboveJdorney

Once I started editing, I realised I'd have to make quite a lot of changes. So I've put in a description of the battle and the correct reason why the Boyne replaced Aughrim as the Twelfth anniversary. The Boyne may have been military indecisive, but it was very politically important. Also, I removed the headline, "Catholic and Protestants fought on both sides", which, while laudable in the context of the sectarian myths around the battle, is a little misleading. Although internationally the battle was cross denominational, sadly, in Ireland it was another depressing episode of sectarian and ethnic violence, with the sides almost identical (in some caes actually the same people, eg Richard Talbot earl Tyrconnell) as the ones who'd fought each other in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

[edit] an chaca?

In the Jacobitism article the phrase "James fled to France, acquiring the nickname Séamus an chaca (James the beshitten)" was taken from one of the cited reference books. While I don't have the Gaelic, "Jim who shit(s) himself" seems to fit the situation better than "Jim the shit" which is effectively the translation given here. Can anyone translate this more accurately? Also, is the accent right in Séamus?

From a TV documentary I remember something about William's lieutenant taking his cavalry west to another crossing point, so that James sent his cavalry west along the south bank to counter this threat, leaving the way clear for William's infantry to cross over, join in battle and form squares against the returning Jacobite cavalry. Hopefully someone with better memory or knowledge can add to the battle...dave souza 18:37, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dave, you're nearly right. I would have put this in myself, but I didn't want to be too long-winded. William sent about a quarter of his men to cross at place called Roughgrange, near Slane. Schmoberg's son led this crossing. James paniced when he saw that he might be outflanked and sent nearly half his troops, along with most of his cannon to counter this move. What niether side had realised was that there was a deep ravine at Roughgrange, so that the forces there could not engage each other, but litterally sat out the battle. The Williamites ther went on a long detour march which, late in the day, almost saw them cut off the Jacobite retreat. BUT, this did not really affect the main crossing at Oldbridge, except that the Jacobites could presumably have used their artillery. The ground there is very broken and rises steeply away from the river. at the top of the rise was the village of Oldbridge, with walls, ditches etc. So the first phase of the crossing was an infantry v infantry battle, which the Williamite's Blue Guards won due to their superior weapons and training. Once they had taken the village, they held off the Jacobite cavalry, most of whom were not sent to Roughgrange. They did this mainly through disciplined volley fire. I read this stuff Padraig Lenihan's recent book on the Battle of the Boyne, which was published in late 2003. If you want this to go in, fire ahead.

Re an chaca, well in Irish "an" is "the" and chaca (caca if it doesn't have an "an" before it) means "shit". I was too polite to write this in the article however! But maybe to native speakers of Irish And Scottish Gaelic this would have meant, "who shits himself". This would make sense in fact, because Gaelic poety at the time depicted James as, "the cowardly shit" who ran away and "lost Ireland" to the foreigners. Jdorney

also, the accent, or fada in Gaelic, is in the right place. btw, now that I think about it, I have seen it written as Seamus a chaca which means "James who shits [himself]!". this is the kind of historical debate people should have more often! Jdorney

Yes please in terms of putting the additional info in: this is the article about the battle, and like other battle articles should give a reasonably full description of what went on, in my opinion. This article quite rightly also has a lot about the context and later interpretation, but still needs to cover the battle itself. If by "fire ahead" you want me to do it, I'm a bit tied up with other articles just now but will try to get onto it fairly soon..dave souza 10:03, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Right, I've expanded the battle section, put in the numbers and strengths of the two armies and a bit about the strategic situation. I'm now going to leave this article alone! Jdorney

Looks good to me. Thanks, dave souza 23:58, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 11 or 12 July?

On Official Battle of the Boyne website:

The Battle of the Boyne, between King William III and his father-in-law, King James II, was fought on 1 July 1690 (11 July according to our modern calendar).

--ajvol 5 July 2005 21:05 (UTC)

On the 11th Night people burn bonfires around Northern Ireland, I think this is to mark the end of the battle, then, on the 12th the battle is celebrated. You should look further into it. Keith 11:27, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I have always known the 11th of July to be referred to as "bonfire night." Huge bonfires are built for days leading up to it, some several stories high. It would be nice to include a mention in the article. User:bonfire 15:33, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Its celebrated on the 12th of July. The 11th of July Bonfires origin can possibly be found here; http://www.grandorange.org.uk/history/King_William_Ulster.html

"A Royal Salute was fired from the Castle and was echoed and re-echoed by the guns which Schomberg had placed at wide intervals for the purpose of conveying signals from post to post. Wherever it was heard it was known that King William had come. Before midnight all the heights of Antrim and Down were blazing with bonfires"

So i'm assuming that the Bonfires were used as beacons to signal that William had arrived in Ireland. User:Unregistered 15:33, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

My understanding of it is that the locals lit bonfires all around Belfast Lough to help guide William into dock at Carrickfergus. --Mal 01:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)