The Battle of Affane (Irish: Cath Áth Mheáin) was fought in County Waterford, in south-eastern Ireland, in 1565, between the forces of the Fitzgerald Earl of Desmond and the Butler Earl of Ormond. The battle ended in the rout of the Desmond forces. It was one of the last private battles fought in Britain or Ireland. Causes – a private war The South-west of Ireland had been dominated by the Old English Fitzgeralds of Desmond and the Butlers of Ormond since the 13th century. The vast Desmond lands spanned the northwest and east of Munster, across the modern counties of Kerry, Cork, and Waterford from the tip of the Dingle peninsula to Lismore Castle and the mouth of the River Suir. Ormonde territory spanned eastern Munster and sputh-western leinster, across counties Tipperary and Kilkenny. The rival dynasties were locked in a cycle of raids as each side sought to consolidate and expand its territory at the expense of the other. In the 1560s, this exploded into war. In the preceding years the widowed Countess of Ormonde, Joan FitzGerald, Countess of Ormond, mother of Sir Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde, had married Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, with a view to reconciliation the two houses. In 1560 her intervention secured a peaceful outcome to a stand-off at Bohermore (known as, the battle that never was). Her death in 1564 ended the truce, and raiding was resumed on both sides. Gerald FitzJames FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, claimed jurisdiction over "The Déise", (pronounced "day-sha") in County Waterford, and in January 1565, crossed the Blackwater with his army, to levy tribute in the old form of "coign and livery". Sir Maurice Fitzgerald, 1st Viscount Decies, chief of the district and a Desmond dependant, resident in the borderland between the territories, called on his first cousin, Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond for help. Ormonde mobilised his men to intercept the Geraldines at Affane, a ford over the Finisk, a tributary of the Blackwater River, in the foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains near Lismore. The battle Desmond's forces comprised his Fitzgerald kinsmen, allied Gaelic clans such as the O'Connors and O'Briens, and a disaffected dependant of Ormonde's, Sir Piers Butler of Cahir. Ormonde's troops were provided by the Butler lords with Gaelic and Old English levies. Desmond left Lismore at first light with 80–100 horse, 300–400 foot, and hundreds of followers. In