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Derry and Limerick Orange's agents &hellip; which made the English slight Ireland for a time &hellip; and, with as much prudence as dexterity, soon put the kingdom in a tolerable condition of defence."

Upon his coming to Ireland some three years before, he had disbanded the Protestant Militia, and since then had steadily replaced Protestant officers in the army by Catholics. In December, 1088, he began to issue commissions for new levies, and within two months 50,000 Catholics had enlisted for the war, but a large proportion of them had soon to be disbanded for want of arms and food.

Meanwhile unrest among the Protestants of Ireland grew to ahead. Wild rumours of Popish plots for wholesale massacre were circulated, and memories of the miseries of 1641 were recalled. They were, however, slow to take up arms against the Government, for the issue in England was still in doubt.

Before the end of 1688, Tyrconnell had committed an apparently trifling error, but the gravity of its consequences proved steadily cumulative. On the 23rd of November he withdrew the Protestant Lord Mountjoy's regiment from Derry, but the newly raised regiment of the Catholic Earl of Antrim, with which he intended to replace it, was not ready for this duty until a 205