Battle of Ballinamuck

Contemporary plan of the Ballinamuck battle-ground, marking the positions of the opposing forces

Date	8 September 1798
Location	Ballinamuck, County Longford
Result	Decisive British victory

Belligerents

United Irishmen

France

Great Britain

Commanders and leaders

Jean Humbert

The Marquess Cornwallis
Gerard Lake

Strength

~2,350

~26,000

Casualties and losses

~500 dead
1,144 captured
~200 prisoners executed

~12 dead
16 wounded

The Battle of Ballinamuck (8 September 1798) marked the defeat of the main force of the French incursion during the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland.

The victory of General Humbert at the Battle of Castlebar, despite gaining him around 5,000 extra Irish recruits, had not led to a renewed outbreak of the rebellion in other areas as hoped; the defeat of the earlier revolt had devastated the Irish republican movement to the extent that few were willing to renew the struggle. A massive British army of some 26,000 men was assembled under the new Viceroy Lord Cornwallis and was steadily moving west. Abandoning Castlebar, Humbert moved towards Ulster with the apparent intention of igniting a rising there but after defeating a blocking force of British troops at Collooney in Sligo, he altered course following reports that rebellions had broken out in Westmeath and Longford.

Humbert crossed the Shannon at Ballintra on 7 September and stopping at Cloone that evening, was halfway between his landing-point and Dublin. News reached him of the defeat of the Westmeath and Longford rebels at Wilson's Hospital School and Granard from the trickle of rebels who had survived the slaughter and reached his camp. With Cornwallis' huge force blocking the road to Dublin, facing constant harassment of his rearguard and the pending arrival of General Lake's command, Humbert decided to make a stand the next day at the townland of Ballinamuck on the Longford/Leitrim border.

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