Battle of Oulart Hill

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Battle of Oulart Hill
Part of the United Irishmen Rebellion
United Irishmen charge at Oulart Hill.
Date 27 May 1798 Location Oulart, County Wexford Result Irish rebel victory
Belligerents
United Irishmen	Kingdom of Great Britain  Kingdom of Ireland
Commanders and leaders
Fr. John Murphy	Colonel Foote
Strength
4,000 – 5,000	110
Casualties and losses
Unknown number killed	105 killed

The Battle of Oulart Hill took place on 27 May 1798 when a rebel gathering of between 4,000 and 5,000 annihilated a detachment of 110 militia sent from Wexford town to stamp out the spreading rebellion in County Wexford.

Background

When news of the long expected rising on 23 May of the

, had the effect of drawing people together in large groups for security, especially at night.

One such group of one hundred or so had gathered on the evening of 26 May at

on their way to the house of a suspected rebel. They burned the suspect's dwelling but, returning empty-handed, they encountered Fr. Murphy's band again. The patrol were pushing their way through when a skirmish began in which they lost two of their number, the rest fleeing with news of the killings.

Night of 26 May

The reaction on both sides was rapid; vengeful yeomanry patrols roamed, burning and killing indiscriminately. While the rebels roused the countryside and made several raids on

^: 92–93

The Battle of Oulart Hill

The militia reached the village of Oulart at 2 p.m. on 27 May. Finding a mass of "from four to five thousand combatants" occupying the high ground of Oulart hill, they rashly advanced and pursued the rebels to the summit. The rebel leaders mistakenly believed a large body of yeoman cavalry was waiting to intercept their flight, so their forces desperately turned to face their enemy and "killed the whole detachment in an instant", leaving only the commanding officer, Colonel Foote, and four other survivors to escape to their base at Wexford^[1]

Foote reported that, contrary to his orders, the militia had advanced incautiously and were surrounded and overpowered by the overwhelming rebel numbers, mostly armed with pikes, and that "great numbers" of the rebels were killed.^[1]: 93

Following the rebel victory, almost all of North Wexford joined the rebellion. Crown forces and loyalist civilians ceded control of the countryside, withdrawing to towns such as Enniscorthy, Gorey and Wexford.

References

Further reading

• Field, Henry M. The Irish Confederates, and the rebellion of 1798 Harper &Brothers, New York, 1851. pp 228–229. At archive.org
• Brian Cleary [Brian Ó Cléirigh], The Battle of Oulart Hill, Context and Strategy (1995) [1]