The siege of

Galway Galway ( ; , ) is a City status in Ireland, city in (and the county town of) County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay. It is the most populous settlement in the province of Connacht, the List of settleme ...

took place from August 1651 to 12 May 1652 during the

Cromwellian conquest of Ireland The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the Commonwealth of England, initially led by Oliver Cromwell. It forms part of the 1641 to 1652 Irish Confederate Wars, and wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three ...

. Galway was the last city held by Irish Catholic forces in Ireland and its fall signalled the end to most organised resistance to the Parliamentarian conquest of the country. The English Parliamentarians were commanded by Charles Coote, an English settler who had commanded Parliamentarian forces in the northwest of Ireland throughout the

Irish Confederate Wars The Irish Confederate Wars, took place from 1641 to 1653. It was the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars in Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, all then ...

. Galway was garrisoned by

Irish Confederate The Irish Confederation was an Irish nationalist independence movement, established on 13 January 1847 by members of the Young Ireland movement who had seceded from Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association. Historian T. W. Moody described it as "t ...

soldiers under Thomas Preston, many of whom had reached the city after an unsuccessful defence of

Waterford Waterford ( ) is a City status in Ireland, city in County Waterford in the South-East Region, Ireland, south-east of Ireland. It is located within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster. The city is situated at the head of Waterford H ...

Defences of Galway

The citizens of Galway had paid for extensive modern

bastion A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the ...

ed defences during the 1640s and the city was very difficult to assault, given that it was surrounded by

Galway Bay Galway Bay ( Irish: ''Loch Lurgain'' or ''Cuan na Gaillimhe'') is a bay on the west coast of Ireland, between County Galway in the province of Connacht to the north and the Burren in County Clare in the province of Munster to the south; Galway ...

on its south side,

Lough Corrib Lough Corrib ( ; ) is a lake in the west of Ireland. The River Corrib or Galway River connects the lake to the sea at Galway. It is the largest lake within the Republic of Ireland and the second largest on the island of Ireland (after Lough Nea ...

to its northwest and Lough Atalia to its east. As a result any assault would be confined to a narrow corridor to the north of the town, allowing the defenders to concentrate their fire. Coote was aware of this, and, after he arrived at Galway in August 1651, he decided to blockade the city rather than to attack it directly. He laid out his siege lines between Lough Atalia and Lough Corrib and stationed a Parliamentary fleet in Galway Bay to cut off supplies or reinforcement from reaching the city. However, Galway remained open to the west and Irish general Richard Farrell was quartered in

Connemara Connemara ( ; ) is a region on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, ...

with 3,000 more troops.

The siege

In November 1651, after the fall of

Limerick Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...

, Henry Ireton, the Parliamentarian commander in Ireland, decided to make the capture of Galway the main priority for his forces. As a result, he reinforced Coote and tightened the blockade on Galway. The siege dragged on for seven more months before Galway capitulated.

Ulick Burke, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde Ulick MacRichard Burke, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde, 5th Earl of Clanricarde, 2nd Earl of St Albans PC (Ire) ( ; 1604 – July 1657), styled Lord Dunkellin ( ) until 1635, was an Irish nobleman who was involved in the Wars of the Three Kingd ...

, who was nominally the supreme commander of the Irish Catholic forces, tried to assemble an army at Jamestown

County Leitrim County Leitrim ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht and is part of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the village of Leitrim, County Leitr ...

to relieve Galway, but few of the demoralised Irish force around the country responded to his order. In March, a conference of Irish officers in Galway, including Clanricarde, decided to begin negotiations for terms of surrender.

Surrender

Thomas Preston, the military governor of Galway, eventually agreed to surrender the city on 12 May 1652. His position had become impossible due to food shortages and an outbreak of bubonic plague in Galway. Coote agreed to let Preston leave Ireland with most of his troops and enter the Spanish service. The lives and property of the citizens of Galway was respected by the Parliamentarians for the most part, but the Catholic merchant families of the city, the "

Tribes of Galway The Tribes of Galway () were 14 merchant families who dominated the political, commercial and social life of the city of Galway in western Ireland between the mid-13th and late 19th centuries. They were the families of Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Brown ...

," had to pay heavy fines and were excluded from the municipal government of Galway.

References

Sources

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