Battle of Knocknanuss

The Rock of Cashel, sacked by English Parliamentarian troops before the battle of Knocknanauss

Date	13 November 1647
Location	Knocknanauss, County Cork
Result	English Parliamentarian Victory

Belligerents

Irish Confederate Catholics Munster army and some Highland Scots

English Parliamentarians

Commanders and leaders

Theobald Taaffe 1st Earl of Carlingford
Alasdair Mac Colla †

Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin

Strength

c7000

5200

Casualties and losses

over 3000

up to 1000

The Battle of Knocknanauss was fought in 1647, during the Irish Confederate Wars, part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, between Confederate Ireland’s Munster army and an English Parliamentarian army under Murrough O’Brien. The battle resulted in a crushing defeat for the Irish Confederates.

In the summer of 1647, Murrough O’Brien (later created the Earl of Inchiquin), commander of the English Parliamentarian forces in Cork, ravaged and burned the Confederate territory in Munster. This caused severe food shortages and earned O’Brien the Irish nickname, Murchadh an dTóiteán (Murrough the burner). In addition, Inchiquinn took the Rock of Cashel, which was garrisoned by Confederate troops but was also rich in emotive religious symbolism. In the sack of the castle, O’Brien's troops massacred the garrison and also all the clergy they found there.

The Confederates' Munster army was incapable of stopping O’Brien because of political infighting between officers who supported a deal with the English Royalists and those who rejected such a deal. Eventually, in reaction to the sack of Cashel and when near famine conditions were approaching as a result of O’Brien’s pillaging, the Confederate Supreme Council replaced Donagh MacCarthy, Viscount Muskerry, as commander of the Munster army with Viscount Taaffe and ordered him to bring O’Brien to battle.

Taaffe was an English Catholic and not an experienced soldier. Moreover, although he had an excellent contingent of veteran troops under Alasdair MacColla, most of his men were similarly inexperienced. Furthermore, the Irish troops were demoralised by the internal factionalism in their ranks and most of them had little loyalty to Taafe. O’Brien, on the other hand, had been commanding his force since 1642 and was well tried in battle. His troops were a mixture of well trained Parliamentarian soldiers shipped from England and British settlers who had been driven from their homes in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. The two armies met at Knocknanuss, "the hill of the fawns" (cnoc na nos), a townland near Kanturk, Mallow in County Cork in November 1647.

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