This narrative of the war in Ireland from October 1641 to September 1643 critically evaluates the performance of the Irish or Catholic armies and reveals the underlying shape of what would otherwise seem to be a shapeless sprawl of battles, sieges, skirmishes, massacres, and cattle raids.

The author is a lecturer in history at the National University of Ireland Galway. He has researched and written on Irish history in the seventeenth century and on military history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.