Mullinabreena

The French Advance into South Sligo

On 22 August 1798, a French force of just over 1,000 men under General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert landed at Killala in County Mayo in support of the Irish rebellion. Within days they had taken Ballina and, on 27 August, defeated a much larger Crown force at Castlebar in what became known as the Races of Castlebar.

Humbert’s position remained precarious. No further French expedition arrived to reinforce him, while a much larger Crown army under Lord Cornwallis was closing in. On 4 September, Humbert left Castlebar and began a rapid march eastwards. Writing of the march nearly a century later, Valerian Gribayedoff described the conditions:

“Rain fell in torrents when Humbert’s army began its march, and the difficulties of the advance were increased tenfold by the muddy condition of the highways.”

Despite these conditions, the advance was remarkably rapid. In his own account of the campaign, Humbert stated that he set out with around 800 French soldiers and 600 Irishmen.

Figure 1. General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert, commander of the French expedition to Ireland in 1798.

Humbert’s main column passed through Swinford before entering County Sligo and reaching Tubbercurry. At the same time, men who had remained behind in the Killala and Ballina area were making their way across the Ox Mountains to rejoin the main force. This included French troops accompanied by Irish insurgents under James O’Dowd, who crossed by the Lough Talt area and joined Humbert at Tubbercurry. Local tradition still associates French soldiers’ graves near Lough Talt with this difficult crossing.

Tubbercurry therefore became an important gathering point before the combined French and Irish force continued towards Collooney. From there the army passed through the countryside around Mullinabreena, where local traditions preserve memories of its brief presence.

Their progress was rapid. By about eleven o’clock on the morning of 5 September, the vanguard of Humbert’s army had reached Collooney. The remainder followed behind in a long marching column which, according to the nineteenth-century historian T. O’Rorke, stretched for several miles.

The army’s passage through Mullinabreena was therefore brief, but traces of those hours survive in documentary records, later historical accounts and local tradition.

Tubbercurry

The French advance into County Sligo brought Humbert’s forces to Tubbercurry on 4 September 1798. Here they encountered resistance from local loyalists. T. O’Rorke records that a French messenger or advance soldier entered the town while a father and son of the Knott family, members of the Sligo yeomanry, were in the street. The younger Knott shot the Frenchman dead, but was himself killed almost immediately in retaliation. His father was taken prisoner and carried along with the advancing army.

Figure 2. The Castlebar Races, 27 August 1798. A later depiction of Crown forces retreating following their defeat by Humbert’s army at Castlebar.

A later local tradition, recorded in The Way That It Was IV, remembers the arrival of the French from the perspective of the surrounding countryside. In the story of Rory O’Toole, who lived near the foot of Muckelty Hill, news of the French arrival at Tubbercurry caused considerable excitement. Rory made his way towards the town, where he joined other local men who followed the French and Irish force. Although preserved as a family story long after the events, the account reflects a local tradition that men from around Muckelty were drawn towards Humbert’s army as it passed through the district.

Mullinabreena

From Tubbercurry, Humbert’s force continued north-east towards Collooney. The route through the parish should not be confused with the modern Tour de Humbert driving route, which follows modern roads through Carniara, Lavagh and Gortnadrass. A much clearer indication of the road available to the army in 1798 is provided by George Taylor and Andrew Skinner’s Maps of the Roads of Ireland, surveyed in 1777 and published the following year.

Their map of the road from Sligo to Castlebar shows the main road running from Tubbercurry through the Achonry and Streamstown area and onwards by Templehouse. Surveyed only twenty years before the rebellion, it provides valuable evidence for the road network through which Humbert’s army advanced. Portions of this old road can still be traced in the landscape today, although sections have since fallen out of regular use or been superseded by later roads.

Templehouse provides an important point along this line of march. Taylor and Skinner’s map shows Templehouse, together with the residence of Perceval, immediately beside the road. Twenty years later, during Humbert’s advance, Wood-Martin records that Irish pikemen accompanying the French plundered the house of Mr Perceval of Templehouse. The combination of the eighteenth-century road map and the recorded incident at Templehouse provides strong evidence for the route followed by the advancing force towards Collooney.

Figure 3. The road through Achonry and Streamstown towards Templehouse, from Taylor and Skinner’s Maps of the Roads of Ireland, surveyed in 1777 and published in 1778, twenty years before Humbert’s advance through the area.

Within the parish itself, local tradition preserves memories of the army’s brief presence. At Ougham Bawn, which remained part of the parish until the 1990s, a field known locally as Biddy Earleys is traditionally associated with the French. From Plain to Hill: A Short History of the Parish of Achonry records that French soldiers were said to have rested there overnight. If the tradition preserves a genuine memory of their presence, their stay could only have been brief. By about eleven o’clock the following morning, the vanguard of Humbert’s army had already reached Collooney.

A second and more sombre tradition survives at Cunghill. A field there is known as the Soldier’s Field, where a French soldier is said to have been buried after dying from wounds received during the skirmish at Tubbercurry. The parish history records that a heap of stones once marked his grave. The burial cannot presently be confirmed from contemporary records, but the survival of the field name and a specific tradition concerning the soldier’s death and burial forms another link between the local landscape and the events of September 1798.

Figure 4. Tour d’Humbert signs in Mullinabreena, with the Church of the Sacred Heart, Mullinabreena, in the background. The modern commemorative route passes through the parish, although it does not necessarily follow the road taken by Humbert’s army in 1798.

There is also documentary evidence of the effects of the rebellion at Cunghill. William Evans of Cunghill received £7 19s. 3d. in compensation as one of County Sligo’s “Suffering Loyalists” for losses sustained during the rebellion. The surviving summary does not tell us what Evans lost or the circumstances in which the damage occurred, and it therefore cannot be attributed directly to Humbert’s army. Nevertheless, it provides a contemporary documentary connection between Cunghill and the disturbances of 1798.

The army itself would not have passed through as a single compact body. French regulars, Irish pikemen and other recruits, together with horses and equipment, would have formed a lengthy column along the narrow roads of the period. When the vanguard reached Collooney the following morning, T. O’Rorke described the column behind it as stretching for several miles. The leading elements could therefore have been well ahead while other sections of the force were still passing through the countryside behind.

The passage through Mullinabreena lasted only a matter of hours, but traces of it remained. The old road recorded by Taylor and Skinner, the tradition of Biddy Earleys at Ougham Bawn, the Soldier’s Field at Cunghill and the compensation paid to William Evans preserve very different echoes of those events. Beyond the parish, the recorded plundering at Templehouse marks the continuation of the same swift advance towards Collooney.

Figure 5. The old road through Muckelty, close to the Tubbertelly boundary, photographed September 4th 2026. This route, now restricted to local access, runs broadly parallel to the modern N17 and formed part of the old road network between Tubbercurry and Collooney.

The Battle of Collooney

After passing through the parish and continuing by Templehouse, Humbert’s force advanced rapidly towards Collooney. By about eleven o’clock on the morning of 5 September 1798, the vanguard had reached the village, while the long column behind was still making its way forward. A government force under Colonel Charles Vereker had taken up a defensive position in an attempt to block the road towards Sligo.

Figure 6. The Teeling Monument at Collooney, near Carricknagat, erected in 1898 to commemorate Bartholomew Teeling and the French and Irish forces who fought there during the Battle of Collooney on 5 September 1798.

The fighting that followed became known as the Battle of Collooney, or the Battle of Carricknagat, after the townland in which much of the action took place. Vereker’s force was considerably smaller than Humbert’s combined French and Irish army, but occupied a strong position and succeeded in temporarily checking the advance.

The engagement is particularly remembered for the actions of Bartholomew Teeling, an Irish officer serving with the French. During the fighting, Teeling advanced on a government artillery position whose fire was hindering the French attack. The position was overcome, and Vereker’s force was eventually compelled to withdraw towards Sligo.

Humbert had won another victory, but there was little time to remain at Collooney. Rather than advancing directly on Sligo town, he turned his force eastwards and continued into the Irish midlands. Only the previous day the main army had left Castlebar, passing through Swinford, Ballahy and Tubbercurry before crossing Mullinabreena and reaching Collooney. Three days later, on 8 September, Humbert’s campaign ended in defeat at the Battle of Ballinamuck in County Longford.

For Mullinabreena, however, the immediate story was already over. The army that had passed through the parish was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. What remained were scattered documentary traces and traditions attached to particular roads, fields and places, memories of a remarkable passage through the parish in September 1798.

Sources and Further Reading

• George Taylor and Andrew Skinner, Maps of the Roads of Ireland (1778), surveyed 1777.

• W. G. Wood-Martin, History of Sligo, County and Town, Vol. III.

• T. O’Rorke, The History of Sligo: Town and County.

• From Plain to Hill: A Short History of the Parish of Achonry.

• Tubbercurry Active Retirement Association, The Way That It Was IV (2019).

• Valerian Gribayedoff, The French Invasion of Ireland in ’98 (1890).

• National Archives of Ireland, Rebellion Papers, 1798.

• Local traditions concerning Biddy Earleys, Ougham Bawn, the Soldier’s Field at Cunghill, and the old road through the parish.