Chaplain Story, with incredible meanness, tries to steal the glory of this deed from the Irish army by saying that the heroes were “bold Scots of Maxwell’s regiment.” The slander has been sufficiently refuted by O’Callaghan, Boyle, and other writers. Maxwell was a Scotchman, but he commanded Irish troops exclusively, and there was not a single Scotch battalion in the service of King James in Ireland from first to last. For further information on this point, the reader can consult O’Callaghan’s “Green Book” and “History of the Irish Brigades,” and also Dalton’s “King James’s Irish Army List,” which gives the roster of the field, line, and staff officers of each Irish regiment, including Maxwell’s. The defence of the bridge occurred on the evening of June 28. On the morning of the 29th another attempt was to have been made, but, owing to some miscalculation, was deferred for some hours. St. Ruth was ready for it when it came, and, after another murderous struggle at the bridge, where the English and their allies were led by the Scottish General Mackay, the assailants were again beaten off, their covered gallery destroyed, and their bridge of boats, which they bravely attempted to construct in face of the Irish fire, broken up. St. Ruth commanded the Irish army in person and displayed all the qualities of a good general. Success, however, would seem to have rendered him over-confident. The conflict over, he led his main body back to camp, and is said to have given a ball and banquet at his quarters—a country house now in a neglected condition and popularly known as “St. Ruth’s Castle.” The Roscommon peasants still speak of it as “the owld house in which the French general danced the night before he lost Athlone.”