An Irishwoman’s Diary by Eileen Battersby
The Irish Times - Monday, July 12, 2010
FIRST LIGHT, it is early, not quite 5am, if even that. We’ve come out to photograph one of several herds of deer of which we have had many privileged glimpses, just never before with a camera. This herd might be gathered among the trees in the river fields. A very light mist is becoming fainter. The landscape is mid-summer green and, where the fields have been cut and the hay is in, contrasting shades of tawny yellow to pale brown. The river is quiet, the water no louder than a murmur when it passes bands of stone.
Stillness. The ubiquitous heron, a surreal statue, one leg bundled beneath him, is standing across the river. He may be sleeping or perhaps he too is listening. A steady, thrumming sound, like a heart beat is beginning to assert itself. It is not that it is becoming louder; it is too constant for that. It is as if it is becoming more important. That is what’s happening; this militaristic, tribal boom is merely consolidating its presence. Cattle doze in some fields, mares and a few foals are peaceful in another; even the sheep seem quieter than usual, the drum beat continues. It is as if it were always there; resonating, consistent, the sound of war – except there is no war. It’s an early morning in July; the beautiful stone bridge at the historic estate village of Slane, Co Meath is free of traffic.
Scanning the land along the river, from the south bank, there is no one in sight. But this is the Boyne, one of Ireland’s great rivers. Suddenly, there is movement. There, just opposite Knowth, the Neolithic complex slightly upriver from the great monument of Newgrange, a figure is visible. A lone drummer is standing side-on to the river at the ford of Rossnaree, just down from the lovely period mansion where nowadays artists gather for painting courses. The man doesn’t seem all that big, but then the drum, strapped to his neck is huge; it covers most of his body. He is beating it with curved Malacca canes to create that distinctive, baritone sound, that sound that is a history lesson, history itself.
Named after a village in Co Antrim, the Lambeg drum, with its strong oak shell and goat skin heads or drumming surfaces, is a reminder of what happened on this site 320 years ago, when the Battle of the Boyne was fought here. The lone drummer looks to be heading for 70, but he’s tough, as tough as the drum that hangs so heavily from his neck. This man comes here to hold a private ceremony honouring his ancestors, farmers and mercenaries, who came to fight for the Protestant William III of Orange, a Dutch man with a French title, an English mother – the sister of the man he was fighting, James II, and an English consort, Mary, the daughter of the same James.
For the drummer on the river bank this morning, July 12th (although according to the old Julian calendar only in use by then in Ireland and Britain the date was July 1st) the battle was a victory. But for the Catholic cause under King James it was a crushing defeat. James did not desert his army, but he did leave Ireland and hurried to France, aware that his only hope of regaining his English throne would be from there.
Three centuries later, the Battle of the Boyne, fought out mainly between Slane and Oldbridge, has become associated in the popular imagination with the marching season, traditionally a time of frayed tempers between the two main communities in Northern Ireland. Something approaching peace – or should that be, a new acceptance of cultural differences? – has recently done much to ease tensions so that a lone Orange man travels down to honour his family and his tradition with his morning vigil. A dramatic study of the battle painted by an eye witness, the Dutch artist, Jan Wyck, hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland. But such is the bitter legacy, this episode, one of the great land battles of European history, is never fully acknowledged in Ireland as that. A tall obelisk commemorating William’s victory was erected at Oldbridge ford in 1736, but it was blown up in 1923, leaving only a part of the base. A statue of William on horseback, unveiled in 1701 in College Green, Dublin, was finally destroyed in 1929, after several failed attempts.
More than 60,000 soldiers, one of the largest combined forces ever assembled on an Irish battlefield, faced each other from opposite banks of the River Boyne, itself cutting its passage through an ancient landscape first settled by late Stone Age farmers. Their ghosts must have watched in wonder as the pike men and musketeers fought to the death, canons thundered while men and horses screamed.
In Irish the battle is called Cogadh an Dá Rí, or the War of the Two Kings – there were in fact three kings involved. In addition to the deposed James II, intent on recovering the throne he had lost in 1688 to his Dutch nephew/son-in-law, William of Orange, there was also the vital psychological, though not physical, presence of King Louis XIV, who was supporting James, not only out of hatred for William, but because the French king genuinely believed in James’s cause.
It was a cosmopolitan affair played out between the fords of the river; the generals present were career soldiers from France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, and Britain who had seen action all over Europe, as well as Ulster Protestants and other Irishmen, including Patrick Sarsfield. The Duke of Schomberg (1615-1690) at 75, nearing the end of what had been a great career, was killed at Oldbridge, while his volatile son, Meinhard, led about 7,000 cavalry and dragoons across the Boyne at Rossnaree where Sir Neil O’Neil’s tiny force of 600 held their ground for almost an hour only to retreat as the Williamite field guns came into action.
The drums that sounded over the battlefield would have been smaller than the giant Lambeg – impossible to manoeuvre in the chaos of battle. Accompanying the steady, relentless drumming would have been trumpets and the shrill sound of the fife, a type of piccolo, played by Flemish soldiers under the command of Schomberg and the Duke of Würtemburg-Neustadt (1659-1701) who commanded the Danish contingent and had served at the Siege of Vienna in 1683.
Another veteran of that campaign known to have fought at the Boyne was the Byerley Turk, initially destined to be ridden in James’s army until his owner, Captain Robert Byerley changed sides and pledged himself to William. The Serbian-bred stallion not only survived the battle, he became one of the three foundation sires of the modern Thoroughbred and died in England, in 1703, at the age of 25.
Close your eyes and imagine the cavalry charges. Look at the spot described by the younger Schomberg as “a very fine plain”. Then think of the forthcoming destruction to this place and to the entire historic area when the National Roads Authority begins its extensive excavation when constructing a massive, overwhelmingly intrusive four-lane bridge across the Boyne, cheek by jowl with Knowth. Consider the wildlife settled in what is a EU- protected Special Area of Conservation. The devastation at Tara will seem nothing compared with the threatened upheaval, complete with roundabouts, planned for one of the most beautiful, panoramic historic sites in Ireland, in beleaguered Meath, a county already ripped asunder by excessive quarrying.
Neither the lone drummer, nor any other drummers, intent on celebrating the Battle of the Boyne will again be heard. The landscape will be obliterated by an incongruous bridge, the birds, deer, otters and badgers will be disrupted and once again, Government-approved vandalism will undermine Irish heritage. How about banning HGVs from the N2 through Slane? Or is that too simple and reasonable?
One thing’s for certain, no one will win the next Battle of the Boyne. If the Lambeg beats again here, it will be in lamentation, not celebration.