Siege of Drogheda

Siege of Drogheda, siege fought in northeastern Ireland from September 3 to September 11, 1649, pitting Irish Royalists against the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell. The Royalist rebellion that broke out in Ireland against the new English republic in 1649 was met by a prompt English response. On August 15 Cromwell and 15,000 troops landed in Dublin. His merciless policy toward the Irish Royalists would become brutally clear within a month.

The defeat of the Irish Royalists at Rathmines in early August was fortuitous for Cromwell, for without it, the English would have held only the small port of Derry (known as Londonderry from 1662) in the north, making his invasion almost impossible to effect. Cromwell quickly found that the Irish Royalists had retreated into fortified towns. He therefore prepared for a series of sieges.

The first occurred at Drogheda, 28 miles (45 km) north of Dublin. Cromwell arrived on September 3 and found the town surrounded by high, thick walls. Its governor, Sir Arthur Aston, was confident of his defenses and refused an order to surrender. On September 10 Cromwell began an artillery bombardment of the walls. These were breached the next day, but the gap created was too small to allow troops to enter the city. Twice they were repelled until Cromwell himself led an assault and overwhelmed the defenders on September 11.

The carnage inside the city was appalling. Cromwell’s troops killed priests and monks on sight and set light to a Catholic church sheltering some soldiers, Irish Catholic alongside English Royalist. Civilians as well as soldiers were massacred, and Aston was bludgeoned to death with his own wooden leg. Hundreds of defenders were executed after they surrendered, many of them clubbed to death. The few Royalist soldiers who survived were transported to indentured servitude in Barbados; the heads of their massacred officers were posted on poles at the gates of Dublin.

The savagery at Drogheda was replicated at Wexford the following month and Clonmel the next May. By the time Cromwell had put down the rebellion and returned to England in that same month, he had become forever hated by Irish Catholics.

Losses: English, 150 of 12,000; Irish, 2,800 dead and 200 captured of 3,100.