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Battle of Druim Dearg 1260

Marker: recorded battle location (no official boundary).

Key facts

Date (year)1260Wikidata P585 point in time
Century13th centuryderived
PeriodNorman & medievalderived
CountryNorthern Irelandderived

About the battle

The Battle of Down, also known as the battle of Drumderg (Irish: Druim Dearg) took place on or about 14 May 1260 near Downpatrick, in modern-day County Down, Northern Ireland. A Gaelic alliance led by Brian O'Neill (High-King of Ireland) and Hugh O'Connor were defeated by the English.

The forces of Brian O'Neill had been raiding the Anglo-Irish Earldom of Ulster after 1257 in an attempt to assert their independence and form a coalition of the Irish against the English. O'Neill allied with Hugh McPhelim O'Connor (Aedh mac Fedhlimidh Ua Conchobhair) of Connacht and together with their men went into battle against the Normans. According to the Annals of Innisfallen, the English had gathered an army of mostly Irish Gaelic levies to fight against the coalition, and the English themselves played only a small role in the fighting. Many of the Irish clans in Leinster, Ulster, Munster, Meath, and Breifne, which were mostly under English rule at the time, provided the English with the bulk of their fighting forces, serving as mercenaries and retained bands. Thus, most of the battles between the English and Irish at this time would have seemed more like battles between the Irish themselves.

Visiting the battlefield

Location

  • Approximate location: the point for Downpatrick, the place Wikidata gives as the battle’s location: 54.3220, -5.7030

Battlefields are often on private farmland: please keep to public rights of way and respect landowners.

Directions (Google Maps) OpenStreetMap

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Down (revision 1376574621), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations removed. No text added.

Battle location from Wikidata (CC0).

Nearby battlefields

Browse more: battles in Northern Ireland · Norman & medieval · 13th century battles

Further reading