Dr Jonathan Bardon, Queen's University Belfast

King William seemed to have no choice but to go to Ireland in person, following the failure of General Schomberg to make decisive engagement with King James II. Ireland had never seen such a formidable military array. Accompanying His Majesty, who stepped ashore at Carrickfergus on 14 June 1690, were 36,000 men of many nations and a thousand horses to pull more than forty pieces of artillery. The German Duke of Wurtemberg-Neustadt commanded a large Danish force which included no less a person than Prince Georg of Daamstadt, brother of King Christian V of Denmark.

King James withdrew behind the River Boyne near Drogheda with Sir Patrick Sarsfield who lead the Irish Jacobites and the Comte de Lauzun in command of the French. On Tuesday 1 July the battle began with an artillery barrage. Then, as King William sent his right wing upstream in a feint which most successfully drew the French away from the main scene of action, the Dutch Blue Guards made a frontal assault across the river. The Guards had to wade up to their armpits at Oldbridge and were fiercely opposed by the Earl of Tyrconnell's cavalry. In the end, however the forces of King William triumphed by superior firepower and weight of numbers.

For such a large and decisive battle, the casualties were comparatively light. Among the dead were the Rev. George Walker, hero of the siege of Derry the previous year, and the Duke of Schomberg who it is said was accidentally shot by a soldier from his own side.

To the alarm of his generals King William, wearing his star and garter, was in the thick of the fighting. King James fled to Dublin and from there to Kinsale before setting sail for France.

It has to be said that the Jacobites made an orderly retreat, marching west with the determination to hold Ireland along the River Shannon. Limerick, on the estuary, and Athlone, by Lough Ree, were heavily defended. King William faced no resistance when he entered Dublin but he suffered a number of disappointments thereafter. On 11 August Sarsfield led a daring night raid on the King's siege train at Ballyneety and destroyed several guns and much of the ammunition. The outcome was that the Jacobites were able to prevent the fall of the city of Limerick and therefore continue to hold the province of Connacht.

King William, anxious to return to deal with affairs of state in London, left Ireland at the end of August, leaving his army in the commanded of Baron de Ginkel of Utrecht whose overtures of peace had been rejected by Sarsfield. Ginkel awaited the arrival of fresh munitions before resuming his assault on the Jacobite positions along the Shannon. It was not until 30 June 1691 that he took Athlone and crossed the river. Led by the Marquis de St Ruth, the forces of King James were routed at Aughrim in east Galway. Some 7,000 Jacobites lost their lives, including St Ruth. Ginkel then resumed the siege of Limerick but Sarsfield sued for terms on 23 September, thus ending hostilities.