On the following morning the English were seen approaching.  In addition to the 800 men-at-arms were 1000 lightly equipped footmen, for experience had taught the English commanders that in such a country lightly armed men were necessary to operate where the wide extending morasses prevented the employment of cavalry.  The English advanced in solid array:  300 archers led the way; these were followed by 700 spearmen, and the men-at-arms brought up the rear.  The Irish were formed in disordered masses, each under its own chieftain.  The English archers commenced the fight with a shower of arrows.  Scarcely had these began to fall when the Irish with a tremendous yell rushed forward to the assault.  The English archers were swept like chaff before them.  With reckless bravery they threw themselves next upon the spearmen.  The solid array was broken by the onslaught, and in a moment both parties were mixed up in wild confusion.

The sight was too much for Archie’s band to view unmoved, and these, in spite of his shouts, left their ground and rushed at full speed after their companions and threw themselves into the fight.

Archie was mounted, having been presented with a horse by one of the chiefs, and he now, although hopeless of the final result, rode forward.  Just as he joined the confused and struggling mass the English men-at-arms burst down upon them.  As a torrent would cleave its way through a mass of loose sand, so the English men-at-arms burst through the mass of Irish, trampling and cutting down all in their path.  Not unharmed, however, for the Irish fought desperately with axe and knife, hewing at the men-at-arms, stabbing at the horses, and even trying by sheer strength to throw the riders to the ground.  After passing through the mass the men-at-arms turned and again burst down upon them.  It was a repetition of the first charge.  The Irish fought desperately, but it was each for himself; there was neither order nor cohesion, and each man strove only to kill a foe before being himself slain.  Archie and the chiefs, with the few mounted men among the retainers, strove in vain to stem the torrent.  Under the orders of their leaders the English kept in a compact mass, and the weight of the horses and armour bore down all opposition.  Four times did the men-at-arms burst through the struggling mass of Irish.  As they formed to charge the fifth time the latter lost heart, and as if acting under a simultaneous influence they turned and fled.

The English horse burst down on the rear of the mass of fugitives, hewing them down in hundreds.  Those nearest to the river dashed in, and numbers were drowned in striving to cross it.  The main body, however, made for the swamp, and though in the crush many sank in and perished miserably here, the great majority, leaping lightly from tuft to tuft, gained the heart of the morass, the pursuing horse reining up on its edge.