Drogheda Muster
Limerick entered the military calculations of the Jacobite leadership during the first half of September 1689, as Marshal Schomberg’s Williamite army advanced southwards through Ulster. French commander Conrad de Rosen regarded Dublin and Drogheda as dangerously exposed and favoured concentrating the Irish forces behind the Shannon, with Athlone and Limerick forming the principal defensive centres. The proposal revealed how rapidly Limerick had become important to the survival of James II’s cause. Richard Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnell, opposed an immediate abandonment of the eastern approaches and supported assembling the available Jacobite regiments around Drogheda to confront the advancing enemy.
