It was determined that the attempt should be made that very afternoon.  The Irish, fancying that the English were about to retreat, kept guard carelessly.  Part of the garrison was idling, part dosing.  D’Usson was at table.  Saint Ruth was in his tent, writing a letter to his master filled with charges against Tyrconnel.  Meanwhile, fifteen hundred grenadiers; each wearing in his hat a green bough, were mustered on the Leinster bank of the Shannon.  Many of them doubtless remembered that on that day year they had, at the command of King William, put green boughs in their hats on the banks of the Boyne.  Guineas had been liberally scattered among these picked men; but their alacrity was such as gold cannot purchase.  Six battalions were in readiness to support the attack.  Mackay commanded.  He did not approve of the plan; but he executed it as zealously and energetically as if he had himself been the author of it.  The Duke of Wirtemberg, Talmash, and several other gallant officers, to whom no part in the enterprise had been assigned, insisted on serving that day as private volunteers; and their appearance in the ranks excited the fiercest enthusiasm among the soldiers.

It was six o’clock.  A peal from the steeple of the church gave the signal.  Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt, and Gustavus Hamilton, the brave chief of the Enniskilleners, descended first into the Shannon.  Then the grenadiers lifted the Duke of Wirtemberg on their shoulders, and, with a great shout, plunged twenty abreast up to their cravats in water.  The stream ran deep and strong; but in a few minutes the head of the column reached dry land.  Talmash was the fifth man that set foot on the Connaught shore.  The Irish, taken unprepared, fired one confused volley and fled, leaving their commander, Maxwell, a prisoner.  The conquerors clambered up the bank over the remains of walls shattered by a cannonade of ten days.  Mackay heard his men cursing and swearing as they stumbled among the rubbish.  “My lads,” cried the stout old Puritan in the midst of the uproar, “you are brave fellows; but do not swear.  We have more reason to thank God for the goodness which He has shown us this day than to take His name in vain.”  The victory was complete.  Planks were placed on the broken arches of the bridge and pontoons laid on the river, without any opposition on the part of the terrified garrison.  With the loss of twelve men killed and about thirty wounded the English had, in a few minutes, forced their way into Connaught.100

At the first alarm D’Usson hastened towards the river; but he was met, swept away, trampled down, and almost killed by the torrent of fugitives.  He was carried to the camp in such a state that it was necessary to bleed him.  “Taken!” cried Saint Ruth, in dismay.  “It cannot be.  A town taken, and I close by with an army to relieve it!” Cruelly mortified, he struck his tents under cover of the night, and retreated in the direction of Galway.  At dawn the English saw far off, from the top of King John’s ruined castle, the Irish army moving through the dreary region which separates the Shannon from the Suck.  Before noon the rearguard had disappeared.101