The Boyne was, and is, politically potent: how many other battles are commemorated every year? Yet it was militarily indecisive. The largest battle in Irish history, it concluded the English War of Succession, the Irish and French-backed James II being defeated by William III securing a Protestant monarchy in England.

A startling new history of the largest and most famous battle in Irish history, this book incorporates findings of a series of newly discovered sources. Was the Boyne really as important as William of Orange's propagandists claimed, or was it, as the losers--the French and many of the Irish--insisted, "only a skirmish"?

Padraig Lenihan reconciles the political potency of the Boyne with its military indecisiveness, challenging the conventional view of this most controversial event.