Monro landed at Carrickfergus on April 15 with about 2500 men, Lord Conway and Colonel Chichester retiring with their regiments to Belfast. On the 28th he marched towards Newry, leaving a garrison behind him, and was joined by Conway and the rest, making up his army to near 4000 men. The Irish under Lord Iveagh were posted in a fort at Ennislaughlin near Moira, but were easily dislodged next day, and fled into the Kilwarlin woods. No quarter was given, to which Turner strongly objects. On the third day they marched through Dromore, where only the church was left standing, to Loughbrickland, where there was a garrison in an island. Monro bribed six Highlanders to swim across, and one of these succeeded in bringing away the only boat. The island was then occupied and all the Irish there killed. No attempt was made to defend the town of Newry, but the castle gave some trouble, and Monro was unwilling to assault or burn it, lest the prisoners confined there should suffer. The garrison were allowed to march out without arms on May 3, but over sixty townsmen, including a Cistercian monk and a secular priest, were hanged next day in cold blood. Turner criticises Monro's conduct, and claims to have saved nearly 150 women whom the soldiers proposed to kill. At least a dozen women were shot or drowned, notwithstanding his interference. The natural result of Monro's system was to make the Irish desperate, and O'Neill burned Armagh, 'the cathedral with its steeple and with its bells, organ, and glass windows, and the whole city, with the fine library, with all the learned books of the English on divinity, logic, and philosophy.' Many lives were also taken by the Irish in revenge for Monro's severities. After leaving a garrison at Newry the army marched through the Mourne mountains, and from one end of Down to the other. Turner mentions a frightful storm attributed by the superstitious to Irish witches, which if true he considered a good proof that their master was really prince of the air. Some of the soldiers died from sheer cold. On the twelfth day Monro returned to Carrickfergus. A detachment which he had left in the outskirts of Belfast had been attacked during his absence and driven off. A large number of cattle had been taken from the Magennises and Macartans, but the English soldiers everywhere complained that the Scots got most of the plunder.[13] [Sidenote: Sir Frederic Hamilton.] [Sidenote: His severities.] [Sidenote: Sir W. Cole at Enniskillen.] [Sidenote: The Laggan army.]