It was fought between the Irish Confederates under Owen Roe O'Neill, and an army of Scottish Covenanters and Scottish/English settlers under Robert Monro.

They landed at Carrickfergus and linked up with Sir Robert Stewart and the Laggan Army of Protestant settlers from County Donegal in northwest Ulster.

However, he had just been supplied by the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, with muskets, ammunition and money with which to pay his soldiers' wages.

Monro had assumed that O'Neill would try to avoid his army and had his soldiers march 24 kilometres to intercept the Irish force at Benburb, in modern south Tyrone.

The Confederate infantry under Rory Maguire then broke Monro's disordered formation with a musket volley at point-blank range and fell in amongst them with swords and scians (Irish long knives).

[2] O'Neill's victory meant that the Covenanters were no longer a threat to the Confederates, but they remained encamped around Carrickfergus for the rest of the war.