DAVE MANSELL essor. James's plan for reconquest of Britain once again stressed the important strategic position occupied by Ireland in the struggle for European hegemony in the 17th century. In March 1689 he landed in Ireland with French support, and rallied the Catholic ex-landowners to his side. He set up a parliament in Dublin in May 1689which passed an act confiscating the estates of over 2000 Protestant landowners; while this legislation was being rushed through James had gone north to try and restore his power in Ulster, which had come out in favour of William. He spent fifteen weeks futilely besieging the fortress-town of Londonderry. This « closing of the gates of Derry on James by the Apprentice Boys » has been etched into the consciousness of succeeding generations of Protestant Ulstermen, and is reinforced by the physical separation of the Protestant minority of the Derry population inside the fortress walls from the Catholic majority who live outside them in the Bogside and the Creggan. The Derry Protestants survived all the deprivations of a four-month siege before they were relieved by an English naval force, and in August 1689 William landed in Ulster with an army composed of English regular troops and European mercenaries. After months of indecisive struggle William defeated James at the battle of the River Boyne in July 1690 and ended all his hopes of reconquest. This battle is commemorated by Ulster Protestants every July 12th in the form of« Orange marches » which celebrate the supremacy of Protestants over Catholics in the north east of Ireland. (Ironically William's victory over James was celebrated by a pontifical high mass in the Vatican because, due to a convolution in the European politics of the time, William along with other European rulers had made a defensive alliance with the Vatican against Louis 14). Following William's final victory in 1691 an exclusively Protestant legislature was established in Dublin in 1692 which set about enacting penal laws against the Catholics which led to their almost complete prostration during most of the 18th century. This legislation decisively widened the gap between the Irish establishment and its opponents. Catholics were excluded from the armed forces, the judiciary and the legal profession as well as from parliament; their bishops and regular clergy were banished in 1697; they were forbidden from holding long leases on land, from buying land from a Protestant, and were compelled to divide their property equally among their children in their wills unless the eldest son adher60
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