Life
?1655-1693 [Earl of Lucan], b. Lucan; Anglo-Irish family, son of namesake
and Anne, dg. of Rory O’More of 1941 fame; left Ireland c.1675; reputedly involved in abduction of marriageable women as brides; appt. colonel; served with English crown forces served against Monmouth and in France, and afterwards held commission in
England, 1678; appt. lieut.-col. by James
II and fought at Sedgemoor; discharged on suspicion of membership
of Popish Plot; briefly retired to Ireland; fought at Wincanton against
forces of William III, commanding James’s Irish troops, 1688; travelled
to France with James II; reached Ireland with James, March 1689; m. Lday Honora Burke, sis. of Lord Clanrickard; privy
councillor and MP for Dublin; appt. brigadier by Tyronnell and Comte d’Avaux;
campaigned against Enniskillen troops; expelled Williamites from Connacht,
1689, holding it as Governor; took Sligo after relief of Derry; retreated
to Dublin; present at the Boyne; held Limerick at first siege, Aug. 1690;
spiked train of guns at Ballyneety; disagreed with St. Ruth’s plan for military
victory at Aughrim, and covered retreat, retiring with his force on Limerick,
1690; created earl of Lucan, 1691; treated with Ginkel, and surrendered
under terms, 24 Sept., 1691; sailed from Ireland from Cork, 22 Dec.; served
in army of Louis XIV and fought at Steenkirk; received mortal wounds at
battle of Landen [var. Neerwinden] in the Netherlands, 19 August; d. 21
Aug.; on seeing his blood flow from a mortal wound, he reputedly said,
‘Ah! If this were for Ireland’; there is a portrait by John
Riley (1646-1691 - also portraitist to William and Mary) in the National
Portrait Collection. RR DNB DIB OCIL
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Criticism
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol.
II, p.503.
John Todhunter, The Life of Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan (London 1895).
Piers Wauchope, Patrick Sarsfield and the Williamite War (Dublin: IAP 1992), 358pp., advertised as a major biography; Kevin Haddick Flynn, Sarsfield and the Jacobites (Cork: Mercier Press 2003), 240pp.
Brian Fallon, review of Piers Wauchope, Patrick Sarsfield and
the Williamite War (IAP), in The Irish Times (25 July
1992).
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Notes
IAP ‘New Titles’, 1991 [publisher’s brochure] lists contents
of Wauchope, as listed by publisher are, introduction; A Misspent Youth;
Monmouth’s Rebellion; James II & the English Revolution; Return
to Ireland; Sligo; The Attack on Sligo; Inactivity; The Boyne; The Retreat
to Limerick; Sarsfield’s Ride; the Siege of Limerick; Birr Castle;
Berwick’s Government; Lanesborough Bridge; Tyrconnell and Saint Ruth;
The Bridge of Athlone; Aughrim; To Galway and Limerick; Clifford’s
Bridge and Thomond Bridge; The Treaty of Limerick; The flight of the Wild
Geese; The Last Campaign; Bibliography, index. 320pp., ills. (Oct 1991)
Portrait, Sarsfield by unknown hand; see Irish Portraits Exhibition,
introduced by Anne Crookshank (Ulster Mus. 1965) [catalogue]
“Lucky Lucan”: The Lucan title was afterwards held by Bingham Smith and his successors incl. the last Lord Lucan, the 7th Earl, who disappeared after purportedly murdering Sandra Rivett, the childrens’ nanny, in his London household on 7 Nov. 1974. There is a Lord Lucan.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)