I would like to refer to a battle that took place in the village in an unsuccessful attack by the Williamites on Cavan town. Philip J Smyth NT, who has retired from Butlersbridge National School, prepared the following article about this event in “Butlersbridge GFC and its People”: Ed. Paddy Leddy.

In the records of the National Library in Dublin is a letter dated 29 March 1690 from an “Officer at Belturbet to a person of quality in London” giving “an exact account of the taking of the Pass at Butler's Bridge and the demolishing of Cavan with the particulars of the defeating of the Irish forces at that place”.

This incident took place during the Williamite War 1689 – 1691. The Williamites held Belturbet while the followers of King James held Cavan and Butlersbridge the gateway to Cavan. According to the letter the Williamites in Belturbet under Colonel Wolsey decided to mount a surprise attack on Cavan, capture the fort and burn the town. In the afternoon, Colonel Wolsey sent out a party of 430 foot and 300 dragoons to make a 16 mile march and make a surprise dawn attack on Cavan the following morning.

A second party under Major Price consisting of 200 cavalry and 50 infantry were ordered “to march to a bridge called Butlers Bridge where the enemy had a guard of a captain and 40 men, well and strongly fortified”. Their orders were to capture the bridge at all costs and so secure a safe escape route for the main party attacking Cavan. At dawn the Williamite infantry attacked the defenders of the bridge, Captain Bryan Kelly and his men, while the cavalry looked for a crossing point further down the river. After a fight of some hours, the cavalry succeeded in crossing the river at a ford and attacked Kelly and his men from the rear. At that, Kelly and his men surrendered, 17 were taken prisoner, 9 were killed and the rest escaped through the woods. According to the letter the Williamites had only “one horse and two men wounded”. The infantry set about destroying the fortifications in Butlersbridge while the cavalry galloped on to Cavan.

In the afternoon the whole army came back from Cavan “having burned all the houses left at that time, except the Town Hall, the Church and one house, with the loss of six men and about as many wounded”. The whole army then withdrew back to Belturbet.

They failed to capture the fort in Cavan, the main object of their attack, because as he says, had they not been held up at Butlers Bridge “for an hour or two they would have been in Cavan at dawn as planned and would have taken Brigadier Wahupps (Cavan Commander) in his bed in the town and most of the rest, but having got the alarm from Butlersbridge, Wahupp had gone to the fort and was prepared for the attack”.
(Reference: British Library London (M23(72) S. M. 812).

A couple of years later a long period of extreme harshness and suppression followed in Ireland with the introduction of the Penal Laws (1691 to 1760). These penal laws attempted to prevent access to Catholics and to a lesser extent Presbyterians from practicing religion, from seeking education, from organizing local and national governments and from structuring a national judiciary. In the townland of Drummany, on the left-hand side of the lane up to Pat Flynn's, a Mass rock or 'Carraig an Aifrinn' is said to have been located, according to local tradition. The Penal Laws were strictly enforced in the first thirty or so years but their application eased and was eventually ended by 1760.

In those days there were major developments occurring elsewhere which had far reaching effects even into our modern world of today. Both the American and French revolutions occurred in the latter decades of the 1700’s. These events promoted freedom, justice and equality as core values and basic rights for all citizens. These aspirations and ideals were pursued by activists in the common interest in many countries and resulted in time, in the formation of democratic and socialist type governments especially in America and across Europe.