>King
William
and
Queen Mary
eventually overran the entire city,
forcing the defenders to flee further west toward the River Suck at such speed
that eyewitnesses account they "flung their cannons into the morass"
as they fled. The most recent account of the Siege of Athlone was discovered in
2004 in an archive in the Netherlands and written on 5 July 1691 after the
attack had ended. The contemporary source was penned by the victorious
commanding-officer from the
Republic
of the Seven United Netherlands, general lieutenant Godard van Reede, in
letters written to his family-members on mainland Europe.
In the account, the commanding allied
officer reported half of the city's defenders had retreated westward towards
the rest of their army, leaving almost 2000 dead within the city walls with
over a hundred taken prisoner among whom were dozens of officers.
It was proposed in the Republican Éire Nua programme to make Athlone the capital city of a federal United Ireland
