Sir, - The Battle of the Boyne in 1690 altered civil and religious liberties throughout Europe and heralded an historic triumph for the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV.
Although the Irish Protestant contingent was modest within the Williamite army, it had previously contended the Siege of Londonderry and suffered grievously during the 1641 massacre of British subjects. The Battle of the Boyne was symptomatic of a Protestant backlash against Roman Catholic hegemony and the atrocities committed against both Irish Protestants and the French Hugenots.
The Jacobite army numbered only 6,000 fewer than the combined forces under King William of Orange, and the Protestant victory owed as much to the resilient fibre of their Dutch monarch as it did to the stoicism of his loyal subjects.
The significance of the Battle of the Boyne victory among Ulster Protestants is manifold, and therefore occupies as relevant a niche in our history books as the Easter Rising. The confrontations at Londonderry, Aughrim, and the Battle of the Diamond add up to a monumental resistance to Roman Catholic injustice and a foundation stone in the legitimacy of the Irish Protestant identity. The blow to Roman Catholic imperialism was felt across Europe.
The colour-by-numbers history lesson in J.P. Duggan's letter (August 5th) does not take into account the imperishable quality of the struggle between the two monarchs, and the stakes involved. These struggles beat blood through the hearts of Protestants to this day. The conduct of King William who, in the words of Lord Macaulay, "was seen wherever the peril was greatest", is in direct contrast to James, who surveyed the Battle from the safety of Donore and plotted his escape routes before his offensive. The heart and soul of Ireland was contended between the two men, a foil to the struggles which were ongoing in Europe. - Yours, etc., Ian R Cox,
Killiney,
Co. Dublin.