The comprehensive defeat of the Jacobite Irish in the Williamite conflict, a component within the pan-European Nine Years' War, prevented the exiled James II from regaining his English throne, ended realistic prospects of a Stuart restoration and partially secured the new regime of King William III and Queen Mary that had been created by the Glorious Revolution. The principal events - the siege of Londonderry, the Battles of the Boyne and Augury, and the two sieges and Treaty of Limerick - have subsequently become totems around which opposing constructions of Irish history have been erected.

Child argues that the struggle was typical of the late-seventeenth century, principally decided by economic resources and attrition in which the 'small war' comprising patrols, raids, occupation of captured regions by small garrisons, police actions against irregulars and attacks on supply lines was more significant in determining the outcome than the set-piece battles and sieges.