Qualla: Battle of Fishguard

Battle of Fishguard: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lis Burke, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the cliffs above Goodwick Sands on the morning of 24 February 1797, hundreds of Welsh women in red flannel shawls and tall black hats gathered to watch the French surrender. From the beach below, the invading column saw scarlet on the heights and assumed the worst: British redcoats, ranks of them, in numbers they could not match. The French had only been on British soil for two days. Already most of their convict recruits were drunk, deserting, or dead. Their officers told Colonel Tate to take the deal. He did. And that was the end of the last invasion of mainland Britain.

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Image: Lis Burke | CC BY-SA 2.0

Battle of Fishguard: The Plan and the Ships

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. It was supposed to be three landings. The French general Lazare Hoche dreamed up a synchronized assault in support of the Society of United Irishmen: fifteen thousand troops to Bantry Bay in Ireland, with two smaller diversionary forces hitting Britain itself, one near Newcastle ...

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Image: Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Fishguard: Landing at Carreg Gwastad

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Baker, James, 18th. cent Bluck, J., fl. 1791-1819, CC0. On 22 February the four ships nosed up to a rocky shelf at Carreg Gwastad Point, three miles west of Fishguard. Six hundred French regulars came ashore disciplined and intact. The other eight hundred, scraped from prisons and royalist holding cells, came ashore and immediately di...

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Image: Baker, James, 18th. cent Bluck, J., fl. 1791-1819 | CC0

Battle of Fishguard: The Welsh Response

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Donar Reiskoffer, CC BY 3.0. Fishguard's defenders were sparse: a few cannon in the old fort and Lieutenant-Colonel Knox's Volunteer Infantry, undermanned and outnumbered ten to one. Knox decided to retreat south and meet reinforcements coming up from Haverfordwest under Lord Cawdor. But the locals had not b...

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Image: Donar Reiskoffer | CC BY 3.0

Battle of Fishguard: Jemima Nicholas

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Donar Reiskoffer, CC BY 3.0. And somewhere, depending on which version you believe, a Fishguard cobbler named Jemima Nicholas was making history with a pitchfork. The folk tradition says she rounded up twelve French stragglers single-handed and locked them inside St Mary's Church. Other versions credit her w...

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Image: Donar Reiskoffer | CC BY 3.0

Battle of Fishguard: Surrender on the Sands

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Baker, James, 18th. cent Bluck, J., fl. 1791-1819, Public domain. By the evening of 23 February, Tate's situation was hopeless. The drunks were useless. The ships had sailed. Two French officers crossed the lines to the Royal Oak inn on Fishguard Square, where Cawdor had set up headquarters, and asked for terms. Cawdor bluffed magnificently: un...

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Image: Baker, James, 18th. cent Bluck, J., fl. 1791-1819 | Public domain

Battle of Fishguard: The Tapestry

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Donar Reiskoffer, CC BY 3.0. Two hundred years later, in 1997, seventy-eight local people began stitching the story back into history. Designed by Elizabeth Cramp and inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, the Last Invasion Tapestry runs to 100 feet and was sewn in 178 shades of crewel wool: the ships at Carreg Gw...

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Image: Donar Reiskoffer | CC BY 3.0