Battle of Curlew Pass

The 'Gaelic Chieftain' statue overlooks the N4 bypass, but is 2 kilometers north east of the battlefield.

Date	15 August 1599
Location	near Boyle, County Roscommon
Result	Irish victory

Belligerents

Irish alliance

English Army

Commanders and leaders

Brian Óg O'Rourke
Red Hugh O'Donnell

Sir Conyers Clifford †

Strength

1,700

~2,000

Casualties and losses

low

500 killed

The Battle of Curlew Pass was fought on the 15th of August 1599, during the campaign of the Earl of Essex in the Nine Years' War, between an English force under Sir Conyers Clifford and a rebel Irish force led by Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill (Red Hugh O'Donnell). The English were ambushed and routed while marching through a pass in the Curlew Mountains, near the town of Boyle, in the west of Ireland. The English forces suffered heavy casualties. Losses by allied Irish forces were not recorded but were probably minimal.

In April 1599, The 2nd Earl of Essex landed in Ireland with over 17,000 troops and cavalry to put down the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, 3rd Earl of Tyrone, and Red Hugh O'Donnell, which had spread from Ulster to all of Ireland. To this end, he supported an Irish enemy of O'Donnell's, Sir Donogh O'Connor (O'Connor Sligo), encouraging him to repossess those territories of his in Sligo that O'Donnell had occupied.

Sligo Town was an excellent advance base, with Ballyshannon 20 miles to the north-east commanding an important river-ford at the principal western passage into O'Donnell's country in Ulster. English military advisers had long urged the government councils in Dublin and London to capture these strategic points.

O'Connor's brother-in-law, Tibbot na Long Burke (son of Gráinne O'Malley), was appointed joint-commander with an English captain of a force sailing from Galway, and O'Connor was expected to receive them in Sligo. However, O'Donnell quickly besieged O'Connor at Collooney Castle with over 2,000 men in an effort to starve him out, and Lord Essex was put on the back foot.

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