AN ANALYSIS OF THE ENGLISH ASSAULT ON ENNESKILLEN CASTLE

BY

ROBERT WETTENGEL

English military operations in Ireland during the early modern period were going to be
marked by numerous amphibious operations and the numerous rivers and lakes in Ireland make
this obvious. 1 The nature of the geography of Ireland and England would dictate English
strategies for offense as well as Irish strategies for defense. The geographic positioning of
nations are crucial determinants in the formulation of strategy.2 Fissel notes that all English
forces arrived in Ireland by water. He observed that the geography and terrain of the Irish
theater made operations in Ireland a showcase of lacustrine and riverine joint operations.3
Riverine and lacustrine actions involve operating in shallow waters, a task that blue-water
naval forces are unsuited for due to differences in naval architecture. Ships designed for
operating in the confines of rivers and lakes need to be carefully designed. Such vessels need to
have their dimensions dictated by the length, width and depth of the waterways they are to
operate within. Naturally, this will limit their total weight capacity, thereby limiting the supplies,
personnel and armament a single craft could be equipped with or transport. The dimensions of a
river could vary based upon changing geography; after all, rivers do not flow in straight lines.
The process of erosion that slowly created the river may or may not have been an exactly
uniform process. The measurements of width and depth in one section of a river are not likely
applicable to its entire length. Therefore, rivers and lakes need to be surveyed with considerable
care.
1 Mark Charles Fissel, English Amphibious Warfare, 1587-1656: Galleons, Galleys,
Longboats and Cots, in Amphibious Warfare 1000-1700: Commerce, State
Formation and European Expansion, ed. D.J.M Trim and Mark Charles Fissel (Leiden,
The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2006 ,233.
2 Williamson Murray and Mark Grimsley, Introduction: On Strategy in Williamson
Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin H. Bernstein, eds., The Making of Strategy:
Rulers, States, and War New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 7.
3 Fissel, English Amphibious Warfare, 233.

Lacustrine and riverine naval forces would be primarily concerned with transport of
personnel and supplies and with engaging similarly-sized and equipped enemy naval vessels.
First and foremost, these vessels need to be designed to fit the profile on the operating
environment and not necessarily that of the mission. These operations were made all the more
necessary due to defects of all kinds, and namely of bridges, but specially due to lack of
victual. 4 The only way to ensure that the deployed ground forces could receive adequate
provisions (or victual) was by water due to the poor state of the infrastructure in Ireland.
Sir Henry Wallop characterized the countryside of northern Ireland as a general waste
that lowered the morale of the army. The morale of the men plummeted due to death, disease
and captains who were prone to corruption, such as selling leave to their men. The deleterious
effects of this corruption would be two-fold: fighting power would be reduced and the morale of
the men who remain would be reduced for they lacked the funds to pay the bribe. Wallop called
for the sending of able and well chosen captains that are not strangers to [t]he soldiers and
will prove more sensitive to the well-being of the men. He also wrote that these captains must
stand upon terms of credit to ensure that they would be above the vice of greed. Wallop also
commented upon the unseasonableness of the weather and how the weather of northern Ireland
was more subject to moisture and tempest than the rest of the island.5

4 Sir Henry Wallop to Sir Robert Cecil, August 13, 1595, in Calendar of State Papers
Relating to Ireland, vol 5 (October 1592-June, 1596), ed. Hans Claude Hamilton
(repr., London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1890), 365, accessed June 22, 2016,
http://books1.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?
id=/ebooks/oca1/1/1890calendarofstatep05greauoft#tabview=tab1. Subsequent
citations of the Calendar of State Papers will be abbreviated CSP.
5 Ibid.

For his operations against Enneskillen Castle, Captain Dowdall indicated in several
letters that he lacked sufficient shipping for his men and that additional artillery was necessary
for the assault on the castle. Dowdall requested the construction of a boat at Belturbet to bring
a saker or two and also mentions that sickness fallen on the soldiers.6 Dowdalls request for
this additional artillery is obviously because he feels that his time for acting is short given the
state of his men. Dowdall was also concerned that Maguire hoped for aid out of the Earl
Tyrones country.7 While the captain estimated that Maguires forces numbered less than a
hundred, he feared them being reinforced.
The more efficiently the men and supplies could be moved from place to place, the less
likely they would be to suffer from disease and other deprivations. This would boost morale and
likely improve overall military effectiveness across the board. This would provide an advantage
to the British. Yet, all this rain would limit the movement of English forces once they reached
their destination by boat. Saturated and muddy ground would slow the advance of the men, and
particularly of the artillery. Such conditions give a distinct advantage to the Irish defenders who
were fighting in terrain with which they were intimately familiar.
Water was important during the Nine Years War. It allowed the projection of English
power into Ireland and facilitated the movement of English forces throughout the campaign.
While the English used water offensively, the Irish made use of it defensively by incorporating
water obstacles into their planning. Enneskillen Castles position on an island within a navigable
waterway was no accident. The water surrounding the island served as a natural barrier that an
6 Captain John Dowdall to Sir H. Bagenall, November 16, 1595, in CSP, 173,
accessed June 22, 2016.
7 Captain John Dowdall to Captain Henshaw, Ibid.

attacker would need to surmount in order to storm and capture the castle, while under fire from
the defenders. The castle could command passage between the Upper and Lower Loughs Erne,
thereby greatly inhibiting an English advance deeper into Ulster.
Water obstacles can be crossed in one of two ways: by ship or via a bridge. While Sir
Henry Wallop lamented the state of bridges in Ireland, the Irish destroyed at least two bridges.
The destruction by the Irish of the bridge over the Blackwater River that severed the lines of
communication to Enneskillen8 as well as the Earl of Tirone having broken the bridge leading
to Dundalk9, but the Calendar of State Papers Related to Ireland makes no mention of the
English having built any bridges. While there was some exchange of correspondence over
possibly replacing the bridge across the Blackwater River, it is clear that the English lacked the
resources, time and good weather to lay one.10
In The German Way of War, Robert Citino states that a way of war as a certain pattern
of war making that is rests upon the foundations of culture, tradition and geographic position.11
The conceptualization of ways of war can definitely be applied to Irish and English operations.
The English were waging an offensive campaign and the Irish were waging a defensive one. The
English sought to use offensive naval power to allow for the employment of amphibious and
land power onto the island. On the other hand, the Irish utilized the natural barriers afforded by
8 Lord Deputy and Council to Privy Council, February 26, 1595, CSP, 299, accessed
June 22, 2016.
9 Francis Stafforde to Sir Geff. Fenton, June 7, 1595, CSP, 327, accessed June 22,
2016.
10 Lord Deputy and Council to Privy Council, July 20, 1595, CSP, 343, accessed June
22, 2016.
11 Robert Citino, The German Way of War (Lawrence, University Press of Kansas,
2005), xiv.

the numerous rivers and lakes and islands within those lakes to defend those waterways against
English penetration. These policy objectives brought about specific methods of offense and
defense. Operations in Ireland required the British to develop brown-water naval capabilities,
which were mainly a technical problem to be overcome by naval architects, meaning that it was
only an incremental extension of amphibious operations used against the Spanish. If Irish
defenses proved to be too inadequate to contest control over these waterways, Irish defeat was
inevitable.
The primary sources that are pertinent to understanding what happened at Enneskillen
Castle in January, 1594 include two visual pieces of evidence: a sketch and a more elaborate
painting.12 These materials were sent separately by Captain John Dowdall to the Lord Deputy in
Dublin. They were attached to letters in order to provide the Lord Deputy with a visual
representation of the battle to hopefully aid him in understanding the operation that seized the
castle more perfectly.
In the center of the sketch and the painting, Enneskillen Castle and the island it is situated
upon clearly dominate the images. The Lord Deputy characterized the castle at Enneskillen as
being in an island on the great Lough13 and characterized the terrain as inhospitable to
operations.14 An entry ten days prior reveals intelligence believing that McGuire hath 600 or
12 See Appendixes 1 and 2 in Paul Logue, Siege of Enneskillen Castle Map, 1594,
Enneskillen Castle Museums, 2014, 10,
http://www.enniskillencastle.co.uk/media/37842/023-enniskillen-1594-siegemap.pdf, accessed June 25, 2016.
13 Lord Deputy to the Privy Council, January 15, 1594, CSP, 199, accessed June 25,
2016.
14 Lord Deputy and the Council to the Privy Council, September 12, 1594, accessed
June 25, 2016.

700 beggars with him.15 Either this intelligence was flawed, came from an unreliable source or
was deliberate misinformation because Connor OCassidy reported that there were only [36]
fighting men and about 40 women and children.16 The information reported by Sir Ralph Lane
was either of dubious quality or most of those people deserted and fled the castle before the siege
commenced. The trigger for explaining this numerical discrepancy could be explained by
Dowdalls seizure of 700 cows from the traitor.17 The seizure of such a source of food by the
English could have caused the people to desert of their own accord or at Maguires direction.
Neither the sketch nor the painting not depicting a particular event of the siege. Rather,
they are depicting portions of it. The entire course of the operation from the preparation for the
siege, through to its commencement and the climactic amphibious assault that concluded it is
shown in the painting. The sketch is more focused upon illustrating the amphibious assault that
concluded the battle. However, the actions that are shown are still frozen in time due to the
limits of the medium. For instance, it is doubtful that the Captain Dowdall in the painting
remained in the same position throughout the duration of the siege, as his responsibilities likely
meant routinely checking in with his forces spread-out in front of the castle and along the
rightward opposite bank. The bottom left gathering of wood with the writing underneath
indicating Cotts for the life of the campe obviously means that this is the point where the
viewer should begin to read the painting. Wood would have been essential for building the

15 Sir Ralph Lane to Burghley, January 4, 1594, CSP, 198, accessed June 25, 2016.
16 Declaration of Connor O'Cassidy, February 1594, PRO, SP/63/173/19, III, f. 68,
https://norwich.equella.ecollege.com/file/13a35b85-2197-4ae0-91397d38264cd2d0/8/mmh_s543_reads_dowdalls_acct_doc_1.pdf, accessed June 27,
2016.
17 Captain John Dowdall to the Lord Deputy, CSP, 203, accessed June 25, 2016.

cotts, any structures for the three encampments, for fire-wood and for the construction of the
wooden palisades.
A sketch should always be considered an artistic rough draft and that subsequent work
will add additional details and flesh-out the subject in greater detail. The sketch provides us with
a general feel of what happened: that Enneskillen Castle was being besieged by ground and naval
forces. The sketch also details the positioning of the ineffective Irish fortifications and the
positions of the English artillery. We also see the great bote that landed the troops on the
island and stick-figure representations of those troops moving through it. The sketch is primarily
focused upon showing the amphibious assault that marked the final stroke of Dowdalls plan and
led to an English victory.
Comparing the sketch with the painting is as stark as comparing night and day. The
painting provides additional details such as where the English obtained the wood they needed to
provide the needed raw materials for cot and camp construction, something which the sketch
omits. The sketch also omitted the positions of the English encampments and it also gave the
impression that the Irish were passively watching the attack from the castle. The painting makes
it clear, from the smoke emitting from the castle, that the Irish were practicing an active defense
from the castle. The painting also shows more of the land in the top portion of the sketch,
revealing where the English placed the cattle they snatched from McGuire. The English trench
line on the island suggests that they began digging it right from the landing-zone and on up to the
position that had been selected for the artillery while being protected by the sow. The visual and
written sources both indicate that Dowdall carefully planned this operation and that it was
adequately resourced with victuals in sufficient abundance to see the operation through to
completion.

The three vessels above the castle in the Thomas painting is where an air of unreality sets
in. It would appear that Thomas wished to show the sizes of the vessels more accurately relative
to the size of the lake, castle and other features. Under the two smaller vessels it is written that
they were the cots intended for facilitating the scaling of the walls, and we find that, given the
perspective of the painting, the action in the area labeled as the Scaling would have been
obscured from view. The larger vessel, is labeled as the great bote for breach and on the right
hand side of the castle we find the same vessel from a different perspective, underneath it is
written the bote ankered breach.18 It stands to reason that Thomas did this in order to reveal the
size of the craft involved, especially since paintingas well as the earlier sketchwere created
at Dowdalls direction. Dowdall likely wanted to offer the Lord Deputy a more proper
illustration of the tactics involved. It was this need that necessitated the appearance of the three
ships in part of the lake they likely never sailed into during the siege.
It is odd that the Irish fortifications were only constructed at the left end of the island.
The failure to fortify the majority of land along the waterline meant that their defenses were
useless. That fortified area of beach could be easily bypassed by landing in an unfortified area,
which is exactly what the English did. Compounding this failure was that, while the Irish
selected ideal defensive positions for situating keeps, they tended to more or less immediately
withdraw into them.19 This failure to engage the enemy at their point of disembarkation meant
that the English landing on the island was, in the main, uncontested. The Irish thereby ceded the
initiative to the English and Captain Dowdall moved his forces into position, their advance
covered by mobile wooden palisades. The mobile palisade (or sow) is visible in the painting; an
18 Appendix 2 in Paul Logue, Siege of Enneskillen Castle Map, 1594,, 10, accessed
June 27, 2016.
19 Fissel, English Amphibious Warfare, 235.

example lies to the left of the English trenches and artillery deployed in front of the castle.
Along the opposite bank to the right side of the castle, additional artillery was deployed.
The cannons deployed by the English were Falcons and Robinets, which fired shells that
were too light to do much damage to the castle. The Falcon only fired a ball weighing 3 to 4
pounds and the Robinet fired a half-pound ball.20 The insufficient firepower of the artillery is
demonstrated when Dowdall writes that he threatened to blow open the castle doors with
powder and that the breaching of the barbican was accomplished with pickaxes and other
instruments.21 If the artillery had been powerful enough, Dowdall would have indicated that the
artillery alone was sufficient to both create the breach and blast through the doors. However, the
artillery still would have had an important psychological effect: disrupting the pre-industrial
silence of 16th-century Ireland with the din of cannon fire and likely frightening the children
inside the castle at the very least and Logue indicates that it was likely that most of the people
inside whom never would have heard cannon fire before.22
The visual and written primary sources are in accord. The assault portrayed in the sketch
and painting do match up with each other. Dowdall wrote that the castle was assaulted by
boates, by engins and by sapp and by Scaling, and got the barbican. The illustration indicates
where the breach was made and where the scaling of the wall took place. The painting also
shows the great boat from which the men disembarked to breach the wall. Saps was the term
20 Logue, Siege of Enneskillen Castle Map, 1594, 3-4.
21 Dowdalls Account of the assault, 2 February 1593/4 PRO, 63/173/20 I, f. 71,
https://norwich.equella.ecollege.com/file/13a35b85-2197-4ae0-91397d38264cd2d0/8/mmh_s543_reads_dowdalls_acct_doc_2.pdf, accessed June 30,
2016.
22 Logue, Siege of Enneskillen Castle Map, 1594, 4, accessed June 30, 2016.

used for trenches at the time and engins likely refers to the sow. All of these components are
present in the painting and in Dowdalls letter. Therefore, the above reconstruction of events and
the work done by Logue and Fissel in their respective reconstructions should be in accord, but
they are not.
There is disagreement between Fissel and Logue regarding the effectiveness of the
English artillery. Fissel argues that the English artillery battered the castle walls.23 Logue
maintains that the English artillery lacked sufficient velocity to do much damage due to the
cannonballs being light shells primarily for use against personnel, not fortifications.24 In a report
back to the Lord Deputy, Captain Dowdall reports having remained at the castle for ten days,
during which he made necessary repairs to make [Castle Enneskillen] wardable and that it is
in thickness of good wall 7 foot.25 If the walls had been seriously battered, the repair job
would have taken far longer than ten days to complete. Other than this glaring oversight, the
secondary accounts are in agreement. If the walls of the castle had been battered, why doesnt
the painting, completed shortly after the battle when all the damage would have been easily
observed show the only battering the walls took in the sector where the breach was made?
Fissel clearly overestimates the effectiveness of the English artillery; unfortunately, he provides
no rationale as to why he chose to characterize the walls as battered. Fissels account also fails
to discuss the deployment of the English forces in relation to the castle, thereby failing to provide
any context for the tactical significance of the amphibious assault.

23 Fissel, English Amphibious Warfare, 236.

24 Logue, Siege of Enneskillen Castle Map, 1594,3-4.
25 Captain John Dowdall to the Lord Deputy, CSP, 211, accessed June 25, 2016.

In conclusion, it is obvious that in the siege of Enneskillen Castle, pre-modern English

amphibious warfare reached maturation in Ireland. The flawless siege and amphibious assault
upon Enneskillen Castle is proof enough of Captain Dowdalls skill and that of all the men under
his command. This operation also shows that intricate amphibious operations can take place in
riverine environments which may or may not be a good distance away from the coast.
Geography dictated the importance of Castle Enneskillen, and strategy dictated that the English
had to secure it in the event of war. Hugh Maguires rebellion against the English Crown meant
that the inexorable logic of strategydictated by geographywould be brought crashing down
upon him and his followers.
Comparing and contrasting the primary and secondary accounts of the operation reveal
general agreement in terms of what happened, with the exception of the disagreement regarding
the utility of the English artillery, which is a very puzzling discrepancy when Dowdall reported
that repairs only lasted ten days, thereby implying that the artillery wasnt capable of doing
serious damage over the length of the twelve-day siege.

Bibliography
Hamilton, Hans Claude, ed. Calendar of State Papers Relating to
Ireland, vol 5 (October 1592-June, 1596). Repr., London, Eyre and
Spottiswoode, 1890), accessed June 22, 2016,
http://books1.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?
id=/ebooks/oca1/1/1890calendarofstatep05greauoft#tabview=tab1
Citino, Robert, The German Way of War. Lawrence, University Press of

Kansas, 2005.

Fissel, Mark Charles, English Amphibious Warfare, 1587-1656: Galleons,

Galleys, Longboats and Cots Trim, D.J.B. and Fissel, Mark Charles, eds.,
Amphibious Warfare 1000-1700: Commerce, State Formation and European
Expansion. Leiden: Brill, 2006.
Logue, Paul, Siege of Enneskillen Castle Map, 1594, Enneskillen Castle
Museums, 2014, 10, http://www.enniskillencastle.co.uk/media/37842/023enniskillen-1594-siege-map.pdf, accessed June 25, 2016.
Murray, Williamson and Mark Grimsley, Introduction: On Strategy in
Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin H. Bernstein, eds., The Making
of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War New York: Cambridge University Press,
1994.
PRO SP Ireland