The Treaty of Limerick

The Irish request for a truce took Ginkel by surprise. Notwithstanding his success at Thomond Bridge, he had not anticipated an early Irish capitulation, and, indeed, had sent some of his siege artillery aboard ship during the previous few days - an indication that he had abandoned thoughts of storming the city. He was relieved therefore to hear the Irish drums beat a parley, and quite prepared to grant reasonably generous terms so as to bring what had been a long and expensive campaign to a final conclusion.

The truce having been agreed to, hostages were exchanged and the sides got down to serious bargaining. For the Irish, Sarsfield (created Earl of Lucan the previous year by King James) assumed the role of chief negotiator, while Ginkel led the Williamite side. The basis for a general agreement was quickly reached and the details thrashed out over a series of meetings during the following days. Some delay was occasioned by the Irish insistence that the Williamite lords justices be present as signatories of the proposed treaty. The lords justices arrived in the city on 1 October, and, the terms having been drawn up and properly drafted, the Treaty of Limerick was signed on 3 October 1691

The treaty was drafed under two headings, military articles and civil articles. The military articles were, of their very nature, short-term, and were concerned for the most part with the disposition of the Irish army in the aftermath of the war. Sarsfield had decided to continue his military career in France and he was hopeful of being able to bring the bulk of the Irish army with him. French policy had the same objective, namely to recruit Irish volunteers for service on the continent. The most important provision of the military articles therefore guaranteed that any members of the garrison of Limerick who so chose, or of any other Irish garrison within the scope of the treaty, would be allowed to take ship for France. Furthermore it was agreed that Ginkel would provide adequate shipping to transport those who wished to leave. Members of the garrison were also given the option of changing side and enlisting in the Williamite army, and though most opted to go to France withSarsfield, a number chose to join their erstwhile enemy. In all about 12,000 men, accompanied by a large number of women and children, sailed for France during the months of October, November and December. Most were carried by English ships from Cork, but a good may sailed with the French fleet which finally arrived in the Shannon estuary at the end of October.

With the departure of the last transport ship in late December, it may fairly be said that the military articles of the treaty had been fulfilled, and, to give Ginkel his due, he seems to have done his utmost to ensure that his commitments under the terms of the treaty were observed. The civil articles were to prove far more contentious, and, the degree to which both she spirit and the letter of them was subsequently contravened was to give Limerick its present epithet - the City of the Broken Treaty

The civil articles were concerned primarily with two issues: the degree of toleration to be afforded Catholics in Williamite Ireland, and the security of the estates and property of those who had fought on James's side. On the question of land tenure, article two of the treaty from a Catholic point of view was more than offset by the complete non-observation of the terms concerned with religious toleration. indeed not only were Catholics denied the degree of toleration prescribed by the treaty, but in the years after 1691 they were hit by a series of repressive measures which left them worse off than they had ever been

Broadly speaking these anti-Catholic measures had two complementary objectives: they were a means of ensuring the permanence of Anglican domination in Ireland and, by the same token, they were also a means of reducing the majority Catholic population to a state of poverty and ignorance. To a large extent they were successful in these objectives, and the eighteenth centry in Ireland might well be described as the era of protestant ascendancy. Not until after the Act of Union in 1800 and the advent of Daniel o'Connell were the shackles of the penal laws to be finally thrown off in the struggle for Catholic emancipation

The Irish army which went into France in 1691 was still nominally in the service of James, though it was serving with the French army and being paid for out of Louis's coffers. James still retained hopes of being able to relcaim his throne, and his Irish army was intended as part of the invasion force which would cross the Channel and overthrow the usurpers, William and Mary. However, the invasion plans depended on French naval command of the Channel, and this possibility was destroyed at the battle of La Hogue in 1692. Subsequently the Irish army fought in the Low Countries against the old enemies, the Dutch and the English. It was in one such engagement, at Landen in 1693, that Sarsfield was killed, uttering, if tradition is to be believed, the immortal words, 'Would that this were for Ireland'. Four years later the Treaty of Ryswick brought the War of the League of Augsburg to a close, and one of its conditions was that James's Irish army should be disbanded. This was duly done and the various units assimilated into the army of Louix XIV. These early Irish recruits - the Wild Geese, as they came to be known - set a trend which was to continue up to the time of the Revolution, as successive generations of young Catholics fled religious persecution at home to seek their fortune in the ranks of the French army.