Ideas of heritage and culture are born out of meanings we attach to landscapes, events, sites, and monuments. The Battle of Newtownbutler (31st July 1689) is one such event that occurred within the drowned drumlin landscape of Upper Lough Erne. Coming near the end of a merciless century in which up to half a million died in Ireland, it played a pivotal part in the war between William of Orange (Inniskilleners) and James II (Jacobites). Along with Derry, Boyne and Aughrim, it continues to shape our cultural and political thinking today.
Upper Lough Erne is a remote, isolated, and confusing landscape in which to do battle. Locating it is not straight forward. With engagements at Donagh, Ballindarragh, Lisnaskea and Newtownbutler, the battle ranged along a twelve-mile axis from Ballindarragh Bridge to Wattle Bridge and a three-mile axis from Crom to Newtownbutler, some fifteen square miles. The landscape has changed. Bogs have been cut and drained, levels of loughs lowered, shorelines increased, woodlands cleared, and new roads and buildings constructed. River channels, and several inland loughs near Crom, Galloon, Wattle Bridge and Quivvy, add to the complexity.
The Bloody Pass, however, remains identifiable today as a strategic narrow channel of water along the modern borderline between Cavan and Inishfendra Island in County Fermanagh. Crom Castle is a mile north of the Pass beyond Inishfendra. It was besieged twice by Jacobites in 1689; firstly in March by Galmoy at Inishfendra, and secondly, from the mainland by Mountcashel on the eve of the Battle in July. To the casual observer today arriving at the Pass without prior knowledge of what apparently happened there, it is a picturesque place. But nearby is a possible burial pit where 500 Jacobites are supposedly buried; killed or drowned after fleeing the main battle to the east. Awareness of this brings reflection, and less sylvan thoughts come to mind.
When Jacobite soldiers at Newtownbutler (probably in the townlands of Kilgarret and Sandholes) considered their situation to be hopeless, they escaped at dusk to the south and west with Inniskilleners from the Williamite Army in pursuit. Discarding weapons and supplies to run faster, they were cut down. Accounts vary, but upwards of 2000 Jacobites were killed as they fled. Some went south to Wattle Bridge but were pushed back towards the Upper Lough. It is doubtful that many of them could swim. Terrified and disoriented, it seems unlikely that they could have covered a three-mile long stretch of open water and islands to regroup at the Bloody Pass.
Some sources suggest that a more likely scenario for the presumed high number of deaths at the Pass was not that the Jacobites arrived here from the main battle at all, but that their General, Lord Mountcashel, besieged Crom Castle from Inishfendra -as well as from the mainland – where he positioned cannon and soldiers overlooking Crom, as Galmoy had done previously. Perhaps it was this group of men who were killed at the Bloody Pass as they fled the island on hearing that the main battle was lost? Folk memory adds weight to this suggestion. A self-proclaimed proud Brefni farmer and student of history who walked with me for two hours told a tale of treachery. “To bring cannon and troops to Inishfendra, the Jacobites tied several small boats together to construct a pontoon across the pass. When they tried to retreat to Belturbet the ropes holding the boats together were deliberately cut and they were killed in the narrow shallows”.
And what of the bodies? Small burial sites are believed to be at Crom, Sandholes and Galloon church, and short of an excavation at the burial site at the Bloody Pass, we may never know if men are buried there or not. Indeed, in 1691 at Aughrim some 5000 Jacobites were left unburied for over a year. Given that the Inniskilleners needed to return quicky to Enniskillen they would not have taken time to bury Jacobite dead.
Largely invisible on the landscape today, the Battle of Newtownbutler is a battle of everywhere and nowhere, and the Bloody Pass remains as a place to ponder the role that the countless dead of this, and other battles in Ireland, have had in the lives of living people. A battle site, beauty spot and a profound affirmation of life.
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