Siege of Duncannon

Part of the Irish Confederate Wars

Date	20 January - 18 March 1645 (58 days)
Location	Duncannon, south-eastern Ireland
Result	Irish Confederates take town

Belligerents

Irish Catholic Confederate Leinster Army

English Parliamentarians

Commanders and leaders

Thomas Preston, 1st Viscount Tara

Laurence Esmonde, 1st Baron Esmonde

Strength

1,300 men, 1 mortar, 4 cannon

200 men, 18 cannon, 4-7 ships

Casualties and losses

67 dead

27 killed in the town, Parliamentarian flagship Great Lewis sunk, crew and 200 soldiers drowned

The Siege of Duncannon took place in 1645, during the Irish Confederate Wars. An Irish Catholic Confederate army under Thomas Preston besieged and successfully took the town of Duncannon in south eastern Ireland from its English Parliamentarian garrison. The siege was the first conflict in Ireland in which mortars were employed.

At the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, most of south-eastern Ireland fell to the Catholic insurgents. Roughly 1,000 rebels blockaded Duncannon, which was heavily fortified and contained an English garrison of about 300 men. Around 150 of the English troops were killed in forays against the Irish at nearby Redmond's Hall, but without siege artillery, or expertise in siege warfare, the rebels were unable to take Duncannon.

Hostilities continued throughout 1642, as the Irish, now organised as the Irish Confederacy raided the town's hinterland. As in much of Ireland, the conflict was bitter. In one incident, Laurence Esmonde, Lord Esmonde, the Royalist commander hung 16 Irish prisoners who had been taken at nearby Ramsgrange. In response, the Irish executed 18 English prisoners whom they had been holding.

In 1643, because of his need for troops to fight in the English Civil War, Charles I signed a ceasefire with the Irish Confederates. As a result hostilities between Duncannon and the Catholic held surrounding area were suspended.

However, in 1644, the English garrison of Cork, under Lord Inchiquin, unhappy with the Royalist truce with the Irish Confederates, declared for the English Parliament, who were to remain hostile to Irish Catholic forces throughout the 1640s. Esmond, under pressure from elements of his garrison, also changed to the side of Parliament and effectively re-declared war on the Catholic Confederates. His motives are unclear: though he was a Protestant convert, the Esmonde family were Anglo-Irish Roman Catholics, and he owed his entire advancement to the Crown.

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