Ireland. A history. Part II. Иностранный язык. Фомина И.В. - 6 стр.

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command of the unchanged garrison, a Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Lundy, was
actually in favour of surrendering the city to him but his authority was overthrown by
the citizens and Lundy had to flee the city disguised as a common soldier with a load
of matchwood on his back.
    Just as the siege itself was starting in April, ships bringing troops from William of
Orange in England to relieve the city arrived in the River Foyle, but judging that it
had no chance of holding out they rather timidly withdrew again. When, in May,
more ships with supplies from England arrived in the Foyle, a wooden boom had
been drawn across the river by the besieging army.
    Meanwhile some 30,000 Protestants, including many from the countryside round
about, had collected behind the walls and seemed to present a sitting-target to be
starved out. The army did much damage to houses, and this in an overcrowded city,
short of food, caused considerable hardship and, in what turned out a wet summer,
much sickness. Dogs, cats, mice, candles and leather were soon being eaten.
Thousands of people died of starvation and disease.
    But it was a strange sort of siege; there were one or two skirmishes outside the
walls, but only one serious attempt to breach them, which was driven off. The
besieging army was in fact ill-trained, outnumbered and ill-equipped. Many of
James’s soldiers had only primitive pikes, pointed sticks without even iron tips, as
weapons. Twice parties of non-combatants were allowed to leave.
    On 28 July 1689 the British ships in the Foyle finally summoned up the courage to
try and break the boom. Under fire from James II’s artillery on the shore they replied
with vigour and eventually succeeded in bursting through and sailing into the quay
below the walls with the desperately needed supplies. The siege of Londonderry was
over.
    The raising of the siege then        led to the eventual total defeat of James II in
Ireland. William of Orange landed at Carrickfergus Castle the next year, 1690, and
won great victories in battles at the Boyne and at Aughrim. In 1691 all the Catholic
armies in Ireland totally surrendered at Limerick, under their Old English-Gaelic
Catholic Commander Patrick Sarsfield. He and thousands of his troops were allowed
to go into exile to serve in the armies of Louis XIV. This was the foundation of that
triumph of protestant over Catholic, Orange over Green.

   2. Retell the text.

          Answer the questions to the chapter and discuss the problems.
1.Why do quite a lot of men wear bowler hats?
2. When did modern Irish people’s grandfathers and great-grandfathers marched to
stop the British government of the day from carrying out its intention to give a united
Ireland the limited form of national independence known as Home Rule?
3. What was a so-called “flight of the earls” that took English officials completely by
surprise?
4. The idea of planting colonies of settlers in Ireland with specific aim of stabilizing
English government rule, was by no means new. What was different about this 1610