Battle of New Ross (1643)

The Battle of Ballinvegga or Battle of New Ross was a battle of the Irish Confederate Wars fought on 18 March 1643.

In the battle, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde defeated Thomas Preston, 1st Viscount Tara, and an Irish Confederate army north of the town of New Ross in the nearby townland of Ballinvegga, County Wexford. Ormonde hoped to link up with the Cork based forces of Inchiquin and so marched from Dublin via Carlow to besiege the Confederate garrison at New Ross. The fighting at New Ross was fierce, the defenders inflicting substantial casualties on the besiegers. Having had to lift the siege, Ormonde attempted to return to Dublin via the northwest Blackstairs Mountains, where he was intercepted by Preston. Ormonde's force seems to have been vastly outnumbered by Preston's Confederate soldiers (Ormonde claimed they were over 10,000 strong) but Ormonde had six cannon. Following some confused fighting (largely due to the rough terrain) the Confederates withdrew. After the battle, Ormonde observed the devastation inflicted by his artillery:

what Godlie men and horses lay there all torn, and their gutts lying on the ground, armes cast away and strewed over the fields.

By contrast, as few as ten of Ormonde's soldiers lost their lives in the fighting.

Marching north, Ormonde led his weary soldiers to rest near Borris in County Carlow. In the middle of the night two Irish men slipped into the camp and managed to ride off with a cart full of weapons and ammunition. Early the next morning Ormond and Lisle were shocked to find that the army had been largely deprived of its arms as a result of the raid.

Another battle at New Ross was fought more than 150 years later, when the United Irishmen tried to take the town. See Battle of New Ross (1798).