Battle of Knocknaclashy Boyle had inspired a mutiny among the English Royalist garrison in Cork, causing them to defect to the Parliamentarians. This had outflanked the defences of Irish Confederates and English Royalists, causing them to retreat behind the river Shannon into Connacht, where they held the fortified cities of Limerick and Galway. Henry Ireton went on to besiege Limerick. The only organised Irish forces remaining in south Munster were those of Donagh MacCarthy, Viscount Muskerry, who held out in the mountainous area of west Cork and county Kerry – which was his clan’s native territory. In July 1651, Muskerry set out from
Irish Newfoundlanders total population. Close to three-quarters of them lived in St. John's and its near hinterland, from Renews to Carbonear, an area still known as the "Irish Shore". There were more Catholic Irish concentrated in this relatively restricted stretch of shore than in any comparable location in Canada. The vast majority of Irish arrived from the counties of Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Dingle, in Kerry, and Cork. No other province in Canada or state in the USA drew such an overwhelming proportion of their immigrants from so geographically compact an area in Ireland over so prolonged a period of time.