Excerpt taken from the excellent book “Huguenot Ancestry” Page 49.

Areas of Huguenot settlement.

Besides the numerous settlements in England & Scotland, a substantial number of Huguenots went to Ireland. The situation and character of Ireland made their treatment more questionable. In the early years of James I’s reign many Flemings and Frenchmen obtained grants of naturalization in Ulster, and the government in Dublin was happy to welcome them in the southern parts of the island, but the great mass of the population had no special sympathy for them or their sufferings. Ireland was the scene of much fighting and the disturbed state of the country made it unattractive to the immigrants. On the other hand the troubles of the 17^th century had left much of the country desolate, and the English government saw in the settlement of Huguenots a means of giving Ireland prosperity and strengthening the Protestant element within the population. The earliest settlements of Flemings were in Dublin, Belfast, Waterford, Limerick and other towns, but the unsettled state of affairs did little to encourage industry.  In spite of this they got a foothold in Irish society and began to prosper. After the restoration of Charles II more refugees were sent to Ireland at the expense of the government, and in 1674 the Irish Parliament passed an act offering letters of naturalization to the refugees and free admission to all corporations. Under the duke of Ormond’s vice-royalty, colonies of Huguenot refugees were planted at Dublin, Cork, Kilkenny, Lisburn and Waterford, with the settlement of Portarlington under the special protection of the marquis de Ruvigny.

With the Revolution of 1688 Ireland was once more thrown into chaos. Irish Catholics remained loyal to James II, who landed at Kinsale in 1689 intent on reclaiming his lost kingdoms.  The country flocked to his standards, and with the substantial help he had received from his cousin, Louis XIV, he was able to raise an army of 40,000 Irishmen. The best troops of William III had by this time been sent abroad or, like the Huguenot regiments, been disbanded. However, as soon as the news of James’s landing reached London, measures were taken for their re-embodiment. The Huguenot regiments were hastily dispatched to join the army of about 10 000 men sent into the north of Ireland. Their first operation was conducted against the town of Carrickfergus, which fell after a siege of one week, but not without losses on the part of the Huguenot regiments who led the assault and suffered heavily in consequence. Soon after, a Huguenot cavalry regiment arrived from England and was joined by three regiments of infantry, the Enniskilliners. They marched south through Newry and Carlingford to Dundalk where they set up camp.

James II’s army was at Drogheda, where it waited inactively giving William III time to bring over from Flanders his best English and Dutch regiments. So far as he could he tried to match Frenchmen with Frenchmen and dispatched agents to all Countries  where Huguenot soldiers had settled, inviting them to take up arms with him against veterans to his standard and along with men sent  from England, Holland, Denmark and Germany he assembled an army of 36, 000 men. He arrived at the River Boyne in June 1690 to find the combined French and Irish armies drawn up on the other side with the standards of Louis XIV and James II flying side by side. On the morning of 1 July the Battle of the Boyne began and after fierce fighting, in which the renowned Marshal Schomberg was killed, the combined French and Irish armies were heavily defeated. Undoubtedly a considerable number of Huguenot soldiers who had taken part in the Battle of the Boyne settled in Ireland, and apart from anything else have contributed to the Protestant presence there to this day.