Derry and Limerick
King James was coming from France with aid from the great Louis; to strike for him was to strike for their civil and religious rights, so once more the people of Ireland, "home of lost causes," went forth to the fight. The dominant section, on the other hand, seeing with the eyes of their time, regarded as iniquitous the attempt to reduce them to a position of equality—they feared, of inferiority. Macaulay has limned their motives in a phrase: "selfishness sublimed into public spirit." Thus the country was plunged into civil strife, which was at once a racial, a religious, and a land war.
The aim of the fugitive King was not merely to save one crown from the wreck of his fortunes, but also to regain the other two. In devising his schemes, Tyrconnell, his Catholic viceroy, had to weigh many factors: the intentions and resources of James, of his ally Louis the Fourteenth, and of William; of the Irish Protestants, of the Anglo-Irish or pure Jacobites, his own party, and of the Old Irish, whom he regarded with suspicion. "Lying Dick Talbot" was an able opportunist, utilising Irish grievances and French ambitions to advance Jacobite interests; but a sordid political trimmer he was not. His master's account of his policy at least tallies with events. He "strove underhand to amuse the Prince of
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