The faulty training of the Irish army was painfully illustrated soon afterward, when the forces of the newly made allies encountered those of Lord Ormond at a place called Kilrush, near the town of Athy, in Kildare, April 13, 1642. The numbers were about equal—perhaps 7,000 men each. The Irish were commanded by a brave but inexperienced officer, Lord Mountgarret, and with him were Lords Dunboyne and Ikerrin, Rory O’More, Colonel Hugh O’Byrne, and Sir Morgan Kavanagh. Mountgarret failed to occupy in time a difficult pass through which Ormond must march on his way to Dublin, and this failure compelled him to rearrange his plan of battle. Confusion—as is always the case when this experiment is tried with raw soldiers—resulted. The Irish fought bravely for a time, but were soon outmanœuvred and outflanked. The Anglo-Irish cavalry took them in reverse. Colonel Kavanagh, fighting desperately at the head of his regiment, met a hero’s death. His fall discouraged his troops, who broke and fled to a neighboring bog, whither the hostile cavalry could not safely pursue them. The other Irish troops, surrounded on all sides, made a rush for the morass also, broke through the enemy’s ranks and joined their vanquished comrades. On the Irish side, 700 officers and men fell in this untoward affair. The loss of the Anglo-Irish was much smaller, and Ormond was enabled to proceed in a species of triumph to Dublin, where the news of his victory preceded his arrival. It is passing strange that, after the battle of Kilrush, the great organizer of the insurrection, Roger O’More, is heard of never more in his country’s troubled annals. All accounts agree that, during the combat, he acted his part like a true soldier, but he failed to reappear in the Irish ranks during subsequent conflicts. His was certainly a mysterious and unaccountable disappearance.