Before there was an Irish Brigade in France, there was Patrick Sarsfield. And before there was a legend, there was a night ride through the Tipperary countryside in the late summer of 1690 that should have been impossible.
The Williamite siege of Limerick was underway. The English forces had brought their artillery train from Waterford — a massive convoy of siege guns, ammunition, and supplies that would, once in position, reduce the city’s walls to rubble within days. A cavalry raid to intercept it was proposed. It was the kind of plan that looked suicidal on paper and that only one man seemed willing to lead.
Sarsfield took five hundred horsemen through the dark, through territory controlled by the enemy, guided only by a local rapparee named Galloping Hogan who knew every track and hollow in the hills. They rode through the night, located the convoy encamped at Ballyneety, and waited. They had intercepted a messenger and learned the password to approach: it was Sarsfield.
He announced himself to the sentries using his own name as the countersign, and then he destroyed everything. The powder wagons went up in an explosion that was heard in Limerick. The guns were spiked. The siege was delayed for weeks.
It did not save Limerick in the end. Nothing was going to save Limerick in the end. But it gave the city time, and the story that came out of it gave the Irish something that armies cannot manufacture: a man worth believing in.
Sarsfield died at the Battle of Landen in 1693, fighting for France. As he lay bleeding from his wounds on the field, his last reported words were: Oh if this had been shed for Ireland.
