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Williamite War in Ireland

1689–91 conflict between supporters of rival claimants to the British throne

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ2320981 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Williamite War in Ireland took place from March 1689 to October 1691. Fought between Jacobite supporters of James II and those of his successor, William III, it resulted in a Williamite victory. It is generally viewed as a related conflict of the 1688 to 1697 Nine Years' War.

The November 1688 Glorious Revolution replaced the Catholic James with his Protestant daughter Mary II and her husband William, who ruled as joint monarchs of England, Ireland, and Scotland. However, James retained considerable support in largely Catholic Ireland, where it was hoped he would address long-standing Irish Catholic grievances on land ownership, religion and civic rights.

The war began in March 1689 with a series of skirmishes between the mostly-Catholic Irish Army, which had stayed loyal in 1688, and newly-raised Protestant troops. Fighting culminated in the siege of Derry, where the Jacobites failed to regain control of one of the north's key towns. This enabled William to land an expeditionary force, which defeated the main Jacobite army at the Boyne in July 1690. James returned to France after the battle, while the Jacobites were decisively defeated at Aughrim in 1691. The war ended with the Treaty of Limerick in October 1691.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Williamite War in Ireland” is 1689–91 conflict between supporters of rival claimants to the British throne. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Williamite, Ireland and conflict, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1689, 1691, 1688, 1697—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Williamite, Ireland and conflict is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1689–91 conflict between supporters of rival claimants to the British throne” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2320981. The Library of Congress control number is sh85068009. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1689, 1691, 1688 and 1697.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Williamite War in Ireland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.