Prosperous, a small but thriving town, then generally inhabited by

persons manufacturing cottons, is seventeen miles from Dublin. It was

garrisoned by a detachment of the North Cork Militia, some forty men

under Captain Swayne, with a lieutenant and twenty of the Ancient

British Cavalry. The infantry occupied a temporary barrack, half the

cavalry were quartered in an opposite house, and the remainder in single

billets. On the Sunday (20th) previous to the outbreak Swayne arrived

in Prosperous with his detachment. He attended at the chapel with Dr.

Esmond, a man of great local influence, and then implored the people

there assembled to deliver up any arms which might be concealed, return

to their allegiance, and receive the protection he was authorised

to grant them. This exhortation proved ineffectual; some coercive

measures--such as the seizure of cattle, then warranted by martial

law--were resorted to; and on the 23rd it was intimated that fear had

hitherto prevented the peasantry from bringing the concealed arms to

the town, and that should they be permitted to enter after dark,

unchallenged and unmolested, on the following night, pikes and firearms

would be brought in and deposited in the streets.

It is difficult to decide whether the stupidity of Swayne or the

treachery of Esmond were most to be condemned. A man individually may

trifle with himself, but for him who turns right or left from the plain

path which duty points to, and compromises the safety of those committed

to his charge, there can be no extenuation. For Swayne’s folly there can

be no apology--his pickets should have been doubled--a cart, a ladder

drawn across the street, would have marked sufficiently where those who

came to surrender arms might approach with full security. A step beyond

it, if the challenge failed, the advanced sentry shot the intruder,

and the garrison was at once alarmed. So much for Captain Swayne. His

weakness was inexcusable--he died its victim--ignobly certainly, but

still by the weapon of a foeman. Esmond met the doom he merited--a

halter. Mus-grave’s account of the surprise is authentic:--

‘At two o’clock on Thursday morning, the 24th May, the two sentinels

were surprised and killed; and both the barracks were assaulted

while the soldiers were fast asleep. The barracks of the Cork company

consisted of a hall, an apartment on each side, the same in the next

storey, and underground offices. A party of the rebels rushed into

Captain Swayne’s apartment, which was on the ground floor, and murdered

him. Some soldiers, who slept in the opposite apartment, alarmed at the

noise, came forth with their firelocks and expelled those ruffians from

the barrack, after having killed two or three of them.

‘The house was at that time surrounded with a great number of rebels

variously armed. A fierce conflict ensued between the assailants and

the besieged; but it was soon put an end to by the following malignant

device of the former. There was a great quantity of straw in the

underground office, to which the rebels set fire, and, to increase the

flame, introduced some faggots into it. The soldiers were soon in a

state of suffocation; and the heat being so great that they could not

endure it, they retreated to their comrades in the upper storey; but

the flames and smoke soon reached them there, as the rebels continued to

introduce lighted faggots into the apartments under them. Enveloped

with thick smoke, and overcome with heat, some of them leaped out of the

windows, but were immediately received on the pikes of the assailants,

who gave a dreadful yell whenever that occurred.

‘At last the barrack being in a state of conflagration, the soldiers

resolved to rush forward and fight their way through their assailants;

but they, who were very numerous, formed a halfmoon round the front of

the barrack, and received them on their pikes, so that but few of them

escaped.5

[Illustration: 0467]

Nothing could have been more detestable than the treachery of Esmond;

though lieutenant in the Armagh Militia, he actually planned and led

the rebel surprise of Prosperous. He wore the royal uniform, and yet

was false to the monarch to whom he had sworn allegiance. When men of

desperate fortunes swerve from the path of honour poverty may be pleaded

to extenuate, though not excuse. Esmond had no plea to offer--he was

wealthy, well born, and respected. He might have proved a rebel, but

why play the traitor? When in the house of God loyalty was on his lips,

while the heart was contemplating bloodshed. Even the tie a savage

venerates could not turn him from his truculent design,--and, while he

devoted him to death, he shared his victim’s hospitality--dined with

Captain Swayne ‘at an inn on the 23rd of May, and continued to enjoy the

glow of social mirth with him, till a few hours before the perpetration

of that bloody scene which he had for some time meditated.’

The work of death at Prosperous was interrupted by intelligence conveyed

to the insurgents, that at Clane, three miles off, their friends had

been defeated--for although partly surprised, that little garrison

succeeded in beating off their assailants.

[[[ATTACK ON THE GARRISON AT CLANE]]]

|Clane was occupied by a party of the Armagh Militia and some yeomanry

cavalry. Early on the morning of the 24th a large body of armed rebels

stole into the street. Fortunately there was just time to beat to arms,

although such of the soldiers as were at single billets in the town were

attacked as they issued from the houses where they had been quartered,

and several of them killed and wounded before they could join their

comrades. The guards, however, with great gallantry, held the rebels

in check until their comrades hastily turned out and formed. A few

well-directed volleys routed the rebels, and they were driven with

considerable loss from the town; but deeming pursuit imprudent, the

royalists returned, and again formed in the streets.

At five in the morning the rebels made a second attempt, reinforced

by the exulting rebels who had returned from their bloody deeds at

Prosperous; supported by a column of pikemen and musketeers, a party

mounted on the horses and furnished with the arms of the slaughtered

Ancient Britons, whom they had cut off at Prosperous, charged boldly

into Clane. A rolling volley from the royalists brought down half the

party and dispersed the rest. They retired at gallop from the rebel

column, which, from previous success of superior numbers, cut a strange

but formidable appearance.

An affair highly honourable to the royalists resulted. ‘As they were

not strong enough to attack so numerous a party, and thinking it

dishonourable to retreat, the captain, Griffiths, in concurrence with

the militia officers, resolved to take post on an elevated spot near

the commons, where they could not be surrounded or outflanked, and there

they waited for the enemy, who began a smart fire on them, but without

effect, as the elevation was too great. Our troops, having returned the

fire, killed and wounded a considerable number of them, on which they

fled in great dismay, and were charged by the captain and his sixteen

yeomen, who cut down many of those whose heads were ornamented with the

helmets of the Ancient Britons or the hats of the Cork regiment.’

A disorderly flight succeeded--the rebels totally disbanding, by

throwing away their own ruder weapon the pike, with the firearms

and sabres they had captured in the morning, and held in but brief

possession.

On re-entering Clane, Captain Griffiths was privately informed by a

soldier named Philip Mite, that his own treacherous lieutenant had

actually carried out the surprise of Prosperous. Having been ordered to

march to Naas, at the moment when the troop were mounting, Esmond, in

full accoutrements, joined it. The rash confidence that his treason

was unsuspected proved ruinous to the unhappy man. He was arrested,

forwarded to Dublin, tried, convicted, and hanged on Carlisle Bridge on

the 14th of June.

The insurrectionary occurrences at Ballymore-Eustace and Dunlavin

simultaneously with those described, offer fearful pictures of the

atrocious spirit with which a civil war is carried through.

[[[MURDER OF GEORGE CRAWFORD AND HIS GRAND-DAUGHTER]]]

|Uncompromising severity does not always produce the intended effect. On

some example may strike terror, in others it will excite undying hatred,

and foster the worst spirit of the human heart--thirst for vengeance.

Of this truth a retrospect of the events of these calamitous days gives

evidence enough, and it is difficult now to determine on which side the

excess of cruelty should be awarded. Assassination on one side was met

upon the other with military executions--the royalists extenuating the

act under the plea of necessity, while the rebel proclaimed that his

murders were committed only from revenge.

When admitting that a similar savageness of purpose might in many cases

be charged against both sides, there all comparison must cease. No

matter what the acts might be, the causes which produced them were

totally dissimilar. The royalists took up arms for the protection

of home and altar, which the fanaticism of Popery, or the accursed

doctrines of the French revolutionists, were alike bent upon

overturning. Allegiance to the king, and the maintenance of social

order and an established government, urged the former to come forward;

thousands perilled life and property from the purest motives; and

when the insurrection was suppressed, sheathed the sword, drawn in the

support of a matchless constitution, unstained by any act save those

which resistance to rebellion had imperatively demanded. Those who have

led a soldier’s life and seen service in the field know that men become

the creatures of circumstances.

Let the gentlest spirit--and such are frequently united to the boldest

heart--one that would not tread upon a worm or harm a sparrow, let him

crown a defended breach, and he will use the bayonet unscrupulously.

The feelings are influenced by the times; and if the royalists were

sanguinary and unsparing, they could point to the atrocities of the

insurgents, and bring forward established facts, so truculent and

unwarranted, as to place those who committed them almost without the

pale of mercy.

Making every allowance for the political colouring given to his history

of the times, and recollecting that he felt and wrote as a partisan, Sir

Richard Musgrave narrates two well-authenticated instances of unprovoked

cruelty among the many that marked the rebel outbreak in Kildare, which

will sufficiently exhibit the ferocious spirit of the insurgents from

the moment they flew to arms.

‘The following horrid circumstances,’ relates the historian, ‘attended

the murder of George Crawford and his grandchild, a girl of only

fourteen years of age. He had formerly served in the 5th Dragoons,

retired on a pension, and was permanent sergeant in Captain Taylor’s

corps of yeoman cavalry. He, his wife, and grand-daughter were stopped

by a party of the rebels, as they were endeavouring to escape, and were

reproached with the appellation of heretics because they were of the

Protestant religion. One of them struck his wife with a musket, and

another gave her a stab of a pike in the back, with an intent of

murdering her. The husband, having endeavoured to save her, was knocked

down, and received several blows of a firelock, which disabled him from

making his escape. While they were disputing whether they should kill

them, his wife stole behind a hedge and concealed herself. They then

massacred her husband with pikes; and her grand-daughter having thrown

herself on his body to protect him, received so many wounds that she

instantly expired.

[Illustration: 0474]

These circumstances of atrocity have been verified by affidavit, sworn

by Crawford’s widow, the 20th day of August 1798. The fidelity of a

large dog, belonging to this poor man, deserves to be recorded, as he

attacked those sanguinary monsters in defence of his master, till he

fell by his side perforated with pikes.’

[[[STOPPAGE OF THE MAIL AND MURDER OF LIEUTENANT GIFFARD]]]

|‘The second murder occurred on the same night. About eleven o’clock the

Limerick mail was stopped by a numerous banditti, and a gentleman was

slaughtered under circumstances which elicited a lively sympathy. The

sufferer was Lieutenant William Giffard, of the 82nd regiment, son of

Captain John Giffard of the Dublin regiment.’ The savages having shot

one of the horses so effectually to prevent the coach from proceeding,

demanded of Lieutenant Giffard who and what he was, to which he

answered, without hesitation, that he was an officer proceeding to

Chatham in obedience to orders he had received. They demanded whether

he was a Protestant; and being answered in the affirmative, they held a

moment’s consultation, and then told him that they wanted officers, that

if he would take an oath to be true to them, and join them in an

attack to be made next morning upon Monastereven, they would give him

a command, but that otherwise he must die. To this the gallant youth

replied, ‘That he had already sworn allegiance to the king, that he

would never offend God Almighty by a breach of that oath, nor would he

disgrace himself by turning a deserter and joining the king’s enemies;

that he could not suppose a body of men would be so cruel as to murder

an individual who had never injured them, and who was merely passing

through them to a country from whence possibly he never might return;

but if they insisted on their proposal he must die, for he never would

consent to it!’ This heroic answer, which would have kindled sentiments

of humanity in any breasts but those of Irish rebels, had the contrary

effect, and with the utmost fury they assaulted him. He had a case

of pistols, which natural courage and love of life, though hopeless,

prompted him to use with effect, and being uncommonly active he burst

from them, vaulted over a six feet wall, and made towards a house where

he saw a light and heard people talking. Alas! it afforded no refuge! It

was the house of poor Crawford whom, with his grand-daughter, they

had just piked. A band of barbarians returning from this exploit met

Lieutenant Giffard. There he fell, covered with wounds and glory, and

his mangled body was thrown into the same ditch with honest Crawford and

his innocent grandchild.

[Illustration: 0480]

‘Thus expired, at the age of seventeen, a gallant youth--the martyr to

religion and honour--leaving a memory behind that will ever be respected

by the virtuous and the brave.’

Shortly, in the course of his campaign, struggling to suppress the

rebellion, Sir James Duffs movable column entered Kildare, when it

passed close to the scene of slaughter, and poor Giffard’s body was

removed from the ditch and interred with military honours.

[[[COURSE OF THE INSURRECTION]]]

|A course of cowardly assassination thus commenced was continued by the

insurgents in their progress to attack Monastereven. Their numbers had

increased to ten or twelve hundred men, and they were commanded by a

ruffian called M’Garry. Such Protestants as they unfortunately met with

were put to death, and a solitary dragoon, seized as he crossed

the Curragh, was inhumanly murdered. About four in the morning they

approached the town and made their preparations for attacking it.

On the 24th of May there was not a regular soldier in Monastereven; and

an infantry company, with a troop of horse, both yeomanry, formed the

little garrison. After a feint on the canal, and a movement by the high

road, which was repulsed by a charge of the cavalry, they pushed boldly

into the town, and a warm conflict took place in the main street. The

well-sustained musketry of the infantry threw the head of the rebel

column into confusion, when the cavalry charged home, and the rout

was complete. Fifty bodies were found lifeless in the town; and as the

horsemen followed the flying rebels vigorously, as many more were cut

up in the pursuit. The repulse of this attack was most honourable to the

defenders of Monastereven. The gallant action was achieved by loyalists

alone, and of the brave men who fought and bled that day fourteen of the

troop were Roman Catholics.

The outbreak of the 23rd of May was attended by many acts of cruelty

inflicted upon isolated families, who, either from mistaken confidence

or inability to reach a place of safety, exposed themselves to the fury

of savages, whose natural truculence was often inflamed to madness

by intoxication. Many individuals of great worth and respectability

perished thus. Mr. Stamers, the chief proprietor of the town of

Prosperous, was torn from the house of a lady where he had obtained a

temporary shelter, and murdered in cold blood. Rathangan was, indeed, a

scene of extensive butchery. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Moore were slaughtered

there, although they had surrendered their arms on the assurance of

being protected. They were murdered in the open street, and their

wives had the horrible assurance that, with the shots they heard, the

existence of their beloved partners had terminated. Thus Mr. Spencer,

that worthy gentleman, ‘who was an active and intelligent magistrate,

and as remarkable for the amiableness and affability of his manner as

the benevolence of his heart, fell a sacrifice to the fanaticism of

those savages, to whom he had been unremittingly a kind and generous

benefactor. As his house, at the hall door of which he was so brutally

murdered, was a short distance from the town, Mrs. Spencer, who was led

to it in the midst of these monsters, had the anguish to see the mangled

corpse of her husband lying at his door’ (Musgrave).

A number of other victims were immolated by these bloodthirsty savages,

and, until relieved by Colonel Longfield on the morning of the 28th,

Rathangan was a constant scene of atrocity, in which even woman forgot

her sex and barbarously participated. The murders at Rathangan, while

they exasperated the royalists to acts of desperate retaliation,

operated against the perpetrators in another and unexpected way. The few

Protestants in Leinster and the south, who had mixed themselves with

the conspiracy, suddenly became alarmed, for the war had now assumed a

religious rather than a revolutionary complexion. Suspicion once aroused

finds abundant causes to confirm it; and while some Protestants quietly

seceded from their fellow-traitors, not a few sought favour with the

Government by a secret betrayal of their guilty companions.

Musgrave illustrates this point:--‘I shall mention here an incident

which throws light on the spirit of the conspiracy and rebellion, and

the secret designs of the great body of the rebels. One Dennis, an

apothecary and a Protestant, was the county delegate and chief conductor

of the plot in the King’s County, which was to have exploded in a few

days; but the wanton massacre of Protestants at Prosperous and Rathangan

having convinced him that their extirpation was the main object of the

Romanists, though they had with singular dissimulation concealed it from

him who was their leader, he repaired to Tullamore to General Dunn,

who commanded the district, threw himself on the mercy of Government,

exposed the whole plot, and betrayed the names of the captains, who were

immediately arrested. He said to the general, “I see, sir, that it will

soon be my own fate.”’ In the course of this history nothing will be

more apparent than the incompetency, military and diplomatic, of many

of the functionaries to whom extensive powers were confided. One while

unnecessary severity was employed, and at another mistaken lenity

marred every advantage which stringent measures might have effected. In

military conduct the royalist commanders were too often found deficient,

and almost in every instance, either to imprudence or imbecility, the

insurgents were alone indebted for moments of doubtful and envanescent

success. The affair at Old Kilcullen was about one of the worst military

offences committed by an incompetent commander. Yeomanry officers always

behaved with boldness, and frequently displayed both tact and talent

when left to their own resources, while many from whose high military

rank and standing something like ability might have been looked for,

proved the truism of the adage, that as ‘the cowl does not make the

monk,’ neither does an _aiguilette_ constitute a general. Learning that

some three hundred well-appointed rebels had assembled at Old Kilcullen,

and that they had entrenched themselves in the churchyard, General

Dundas proceeded to dislodge them. His force consisted of only forty

dragoons and some twenty Suffolk militiamen. The rebel position was on a

height--one side protected by a high wall, the other secured by a

double fence--a hedge with a dike in front. Would it be credited that

an English general could be mad enough to assail three hundred men thus

posted with forty dragoons? Mus-grave thus narrates the transaction,

and his account has been considered by those engaged to be perfectly

correct:--

General Dundas ordered the Romneys and the 9th Dragoons to charge the

rebels, though it was uphill, though the ground was broken, and many of

the rebels were in a road close to the churchyard in which not more than

six of the cavalry could advance in front.

‘They, however, charged with great spirit, though their destruction

was considered by all the spectators to be the certain and inevitable

consequence of it; for what could cavalry do, thus broken and divided,

against a firm phalanx of rebels armed with long pikes? Nevertheless

they made three charges, but were repulsed in each; and at every repulse

the general urged them to renew the attack.

‘It was with the utmost difficulty that Captain Cooks and Captain

Erskine could prevail upon their men to renew the charge after the

first defeat. In the last charge, Captain Cooks, to inspire his men with

courage by example, advanced some yards before them; when his horse,

having received many wounds, fell upon his knees; and while in that

situation the body of that brave officer was perforated with pikes; and

he, Captain Erskine, and twenty-two privates were killed on the spot,

and ten so badly wounded that most of them died soon after.’

Shamefully discomfited, Dundas fell back on the village of Kilcullen

bridge, and occupied a pass in every way defensible. So thought the

successful peasants who had garrisoned the churchyard and deforced

an English general. They prudently declined any attempt to force the

bridge, forded the Liffey at Castlemartin, and took up a position

between Naas and Kilcullen--thus cutting off General Dundas’s

communication with the capital.

Nothing remained for the royalist commander but to drive them from these

grounds and open his road to Naas. He advanced accordingly, found them

in line three deep, and with his cavalry in hand, boldly attacked the

position with half a company of the gallant Suffolks. Small as the party

was, three rounds broke the rebels. The cavalry charged, and the same

body which had so recently inflicted a severe repulse were scattered

like a flock of sheep, leaving the ground covered with their dead and

wounded. After a brief but bloody pursuit, Dundas marched on Naas, to

concentrate his troops and assist in covering the capital.

[[[ATTACK ON NAAS]]]

‘If one can imagine such a thing as a tableau, or bird’s-eye view of

the rebellion from the 23rd to the 30th of May (1790), the appearance

it would present would be this. Seven or eight comparatively minor

explosions, lighting up the atmosphere for a short space and then going

gradually out, viz. one in Meath (Tara), one in Wicklow (Mount Kennedy),

a good blaze in Carlow, and four or five in Kildare, which its being

Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s own county accounts for--these were Naas,

Prosperous, Kilcullen, and Rathangan. The eye should then be drawn to

the mighty and absorbing eruption of Wexford; taking Vinegar Hill as its

crater, it would observe two streams of lava pouring forth, one due west

to Ross, one due north towards Wicklow, and a third, of somewhat less

importance, north-west to Newtown Barry. I rather think the first shot

was fired by my regiment at Naas, as Mick Reynolds, who led the rebels,

was one of the promptest of the insurgent leaders.’--_The MS. Journal of

a Field Officer_.

The garrison of Naas consisted of a hundred and fifty of the Armagh

Militia, with two battalion guns, and seventy cavalry, consisting of

small detachments of the Fourth Dragoons, Ancient Britons, and sixteen

mounted yeomen. The whole were under the command of Colonel Lord

Gosford.

On the evening of the general insurrection (the 23rd of May) anonymous

letters were received by the commanding officer, apprising him that

a night attack would be made upon the town by a numerous body of

well-armed rebels, and necessary dispositions of the garrison were

made to receive the threatened assault. The guards were doubled,

the outskirts of the town carefully patrolled, and a plan of defence

prearranged to prevent any confusion when the hour for action came.

Midnight passed without anything occurring to cause alarm, and as

morning dawned, it was believed that the information received the

preceding evening had been incorrect, and the officers retired to their

quarters. At half-past two, however, an outlying dragoon galloped in,

announcing the advance of a numerous body of rebels; the drums beat to

arms, and the garrison occupied their alarm posts.

Perhaps the commanding officer and his staff were more than a trifle

incautious and premature in deciding there was nothing in the timely

warning.

In spite of the precautionary vigilance, Lord Gosford had the very

narrowest possible escape from death by assassination. His lodging was

situated at the summit of the hill which the Dublin road ascends. The

sentinel at his door, having his attention attracted by the entrance of

the rebel columns at the foot of the hill, was inexcusably so far off

his guard as to allow two pikemen, belonging to the town, to slip into

the hall, where they were ready to receive his lordship with their pikes

as he hurried from his chamber on the alarm. And they were very near

succeeding--but the sentinel turning about at the critical moment, shot

one and bayoneted the other, just as his lordship was rushing down the

stairs. The sentinel’s name was John Sandford; he was afterwards made a

sergeant, and his son a drummer.

The rebels, who had assembled at the quarries of Tipper, advanced on the

town in four divisions, each entering by a different approach, and the

heaviest column moving by the Johnstown Road. The latter was commanded

by Michael Reynolds, and it made a bold effort to carry the jail, in

front of which a party of the Armagh Militia, the Ancient Britons, and

a battalion gun were posted. But the attack was completely repulsed, and

the rebel loss would have been more considerable had not the cavalry,

irritated by the fall of their officer, Captain Davis, who had been

fatally piked, charged too prematurely, and interrupted the play of the

gun; the execution of the latter was so trifling compared to what it

should have produced upon a body in close column and at canister range,

that it was ascribed rather to treachery than want of skill. For forty

minutes, however, desultory firing continued.

‘Large parties of the rebels, who stole unnoticed into the town through

the houses and narrow lanes, fought some time in the streets, and stood

three volleys from the Armagh Militia, posted opposite to the barrack,

before they gave way; at last they fled precipitately in every

direction, when the cavalry charged, and killed a great number of them

in the pursuit. Thirty of the rebels were killed in the streets; and

from the numbers found dead in back houses and in the adjacent fields a

few days afterwards, it is imagined that no less than three hundred must

have fallen.

‘They dropped in their flight a great quantity of pikes and other arms,

of which a number were found in pits near the town, where also three

men with green cockades were seized, and instantly hanged in the

public streets. Another prisoner was spared in consequence of useful

information which he gave. He informed the commanding officer that the

rebel party was above one thousand strong, and was commanded by Michael

Reynolds, who was well mounted, and dressed in yeoman uniform. He made

his escape, but his horse fell into the hands of our troops.’

[[[KILDARE AND CARLOW]]]

|The entire of the county of Kildare was now in open insurrection, and

not less than six rebel encampments were formed, and multitudes of the

peasantry flocked to them. The houses were almost entirely deserted.

Of the Protestant clergy not a man remained, and indeed the ferocity

of party feeling had attained an intensity of violence which now can

scarcely be imagined or believed. An infernal spirit actuated the

opposite religionists. On one side, Catholics were too generally

regarded with hatred and distrust; on the other, Protestants and

Orangemen were held synonymous, and to all who dissented from the Church

of Rome the most abominable feelings and intentions were attributed.

_The MS. Journal of a Field Officer_ relates: ‘One of the _completest_

things during the rebellion was the defeat of the rebels at Carlow, in

which a company of my regiment had a share. There was full information

of the intended attack, but “not a drum was heard.” The soldiers, who

were chiefly in billets, were allowed to repair to their quarters as

usual, and remain there until it was ascertained that the town rebels

had quitted it to join their fellows and arm themselves, which they did

about two miles from the town. A number of sergeants then went round,

and the men were brought to their posts without the least alarm.

‘The rebel column entered Carlow by Tullow Street, unopposed--the street

terminating in a place or open space where stood the horse barracks

and jail. Arrived here they raised a loud shout or yell, and it was

fearfully responded to by a destructive fire which opened upon them from

different points. Seized with a panic at this unexpected reception they

endeavoured to escape in various directions. The greater part retraced

their steps through Tullow Street, but a picket had by this time

occupied the further end of it, and opened a withering fire. They now

sought refuge in the houses: these the soldiers set fire to; a number

were shot in attempting to escape the flames, but a great many of the

unfortunate wretches perished in them.’

About eighty houses were consumed in this conflagration; and for some

days the roasted remains of unhappy men were falling down the chimneys

in which they had perished.

It will be here necessary to mention that in Kildare, within a few days

after the outbreak, an amnesty for the past was solicited by many of the

rebels, and, with the consent of Government, the generals commanding in

that county entered into negotiations with their chiefs. How far

this was a prudent measure is questionable. In the spirit of the

proclamations issued--with arms in their hands, rebels should have

been placed outside the pale of treaty; while at the same time the

most extensive forgiveness should have been extended to such as

should disband themselves and reoccupy their abandoned dwellings. In

diplomatic, as well as in field abilities, the royal generals were

defective, and the amnesty produced nothing but treachery and bloodshed.

The former charge rests with the insurgents, the latter must be laid at

the hands of the royalists.

[[[TREACHERY IN THE MIDST OF THE CAPITAL]]]

|While the counties in the immediate vicinity of the capital were

thus in open insurrection, in the city the spirit and hopes of the

disaffected were still buoyant as to the prospect of ultimate success;

and although the failure of the 23rd had for a time paralysed the

traitors of the metropolis, they were disappointed, but not despairing,

and rebellion was ‘scotched, not killed.’

The committees and ‘directories’ continued their meetings, pikes were

fabricated in large quantities, the sentries were assaulted on isolated

posts, the doors of royalists were marked, domestic servants were

corrupted. Musgrave records:--‘The Lord Mayor’s servant acknowledged to

his employer that he was at the head of a numerous body of servants who

were to have assassinated their masters; that he and his party were

to have murdered the Lord Mayor and his family, with two others of his

servants who had refused to join this precious association, and that

this atrocious deed was to have been the signal for the other servants

in the vicinity to rise and commit similar enormities. Another certain

proof that a revolution was not only contemplated but expected, many of

the Dublin tradesmen refused to receive bank notes in payment from their

customers.’

Another serious cause of alarm also was the discovery that into many of

the yeomanry corps disaffected persons had been introduced, and in some

the traitors outnumbered ‘the true men.’

In Kildare almost every corps was tainted, and the same remark applied

to many in the metropolis. Of the country corps, the Sleamarigue laid

down their arms, the Castledermot had but five well-affected men, the

Athy cavalry were publicly disarmed in the market-place, and their

captain, Fitzgerald of Geraldine, committed to prison. The Rathangan,

North Naas, and Furnace yeomanry were all extensively disaffected,

and the Clane, nominally amounting to sixty-six, could only muster

five-and-twenty when the insurrection broke out.

Of the metropolitan corps many were exclusively loyal, but others were

not without traitorous members. One instance will be sufficient to show

how extensive and dangerous was the disaffection.

On the 29th of May, the St. Sepulchre’s corps, in turn of duty, took

the guard at Dolphin’s Barn, an outpost on the southwest side of the

metropolis. While on the march to the bridge, a Roman Catholic yeoman,

named Raymond, entered into conversation with his comrade, a notorious

United Irishman, and communicated the secret plot. He told Jennings,

‘that in case of an attack, which was hourly expected, and which it was

believed he had previously concerted with the rebels, the disaffected

members of the corps were to massacre their officers and the

Protestants, and to deliver up the bridge to the assailants. They were

then to proceed to the battery in the park, inform the guard that they

had been defeated, ask admittance, and on being let in, murder the

guard, take possession of the battery and ammunition, and turn it to

their own use.

‘Jennings had been sworn a United Irishman, and was attached to the

cause from republican principles; but being a Protestant, and having

discovered from the massacres which had taken place in the counties of

Dublin, Meath, and Kildare, that the extirpation of his own order was

intended, he informed Lieutenant Mathurin of the plot; and he, having

communicated it to the Government, Raymond was taken up, tried,

convicted, and hanged on the Old Bridge on the 1st of June.’

As the Roman Catholic members of that corps, who formed the majority of

it, were discovered to be disaffected, they were disarmed on parade the

Sunday following, and disbanded.

The fears of the inhabitants of the city were not abated when, on

the 26th of May, the Lord Mayor caused the following placard to be

circulated throughout the metropolis:--

‘A Caution

‘_Lest the innocent should suffer for the guilty_.

‘The Lord Mayor requests his fellow-citizens to keep within their houses

as much as they can, suitable to their convenience, after sunset, in

this time of peril; as the streets should be kept as clear as possible,

should any tumult or rising to support rebellion be attempted, in order

that the troops and artillery may act with full effect in case of any

disturbance.’

[[[THE HILL OF TARA]]]

|At this period, after plundering, and a commission of other outrages at

Dunboyn, the rebels, from the borders of Meath and Dublin, proceeded in

the first instance to Dunshaughlin, and afterwards to the hill of Tara.

Their numbers had rapidly increased; there were no military parties

in the immediate neighbourhood; and unchecked and unresisted, they

devastated the country for miles round their camp, to which they carried

an immense quantity of booty. A few corps of yeomanry still remained in

the vicinity, but they were not sufficiently numerous to attack a very

strong and defensible position. Accident, however, interposed, and the

royalists obtained the assistance they required.

Three companies of the Reay Fencibles, with a battalion gun, were on the

march to the metropolis, and halted in Navan on the night of the 25th of

May. Captain Preston, who commanded the yeomanry of that town, solicited

the co-operation of Captain M’Clean to deforce the rebels....

‘After going some time in quest of the rebels they found them very

strongly posted on Tara hill, where they had been four hours, and about

four thousand in number, while the country people were flocking to them

in great multitudes from every quarter. They had plundered the houses

in all the adjacent country of provisions of every kind, and were

proceeding to cook their dinners, having lighted nearly forty fires, and

hoisted white flags in their camp.

‘The hill of Tara is very steep, and the upper part surrounded by three

circular Danish forts, with ramparts and fosses; while on the top lies

the churchyard surrounded with a wall, which the rebels regarded as

their citadel, and considered impregnable.

‘The king’s troops, including the yeomanry, might have amounted to about

four hundred. As soon as the rebels perceived them they put their hats

on the tops of their spikes, sent forth some dreadful yells, and at the

same time began to jump, and put themselves in singular attitudes, as

if bidding defiance to their adversaries. They then began to advance,

firing at the same time, but in an irregular manner.

‘Our line of infantry came on with the greatest coolness, and did not

fire a shot until they were within fifty yards. One part of the cavalry,

commanded by Lord Fingal, was ordered to the right, the other to

the left, to prevent the line from being outflanked, which the enemy

attempted to accomplish. The rebels made three desperate onsets, and in

the last laid hold of the cannon; but the officer who commanded the

gun laid the match to it before they could completely surround it,

prostrated ten or twelve of the assailants, and dispersed the remainder.

The Reay Fencibles preserved their line, and fired with as much coolness

as if they had been exercising on a field-day.

‘At length they routed the rebels, who fled in all directions, having

lost about four hundred in killed and wounded. In their flight they

threw away arms and ammunition, and everything that could encumber

them. Three hundred horses, all their provisions, arms, ammunition,

and baggage fell into the hands of the victors, with eight of the Reay

Fencibles, whom they had taken prisoners two days before, and whom they

employed to drill them.

‘It is to be lamented that the Reay Fencibles lost twenty-six men in

killed and wounded, and the Upper Kells infantry six men.

‘The king’s troops would have remained on the field all night, but

they had not a cartridge left either for the gun or small arms, The

prisoners, of whom they took a good many, informed our officers that

their intention was to have proceeded that night to plunder Navan, and

then Kells, where there was a great quantity of ammunition, and little

or no force to protect it; and that when they had succeeded they

expected, according to a preconcerted plan, to have been joined by a

great number of insurgents from Meath, Westmeath, Lough, Monaghan, and

Cavan.’

The defeat of the insurgents, and their complete dispersion at Tara

hill and on the Curragh, were highly advantageous, as they opened the

communications north and south with the metropolis, which had been

seriously interrupted.

Many partial affairs took place at this time between the royalists and

the rebels in Kildare, and barbarities on the one side produced on the

other a terrible retaliation. The insurgents burned and murdered as they

went along; the troops and yeomen shot and hanged liberally in return.

The record of crimes inhumanly committed and ruthlessly revenged would

only disgust a reader.

While thus Kildare was exhibited for nearly a week one wide blaze of

general insurrection, another county, which in the annals of rebellion

assumed afterwards a sanguinary pre-eminence, remained in ominous

tranquillity. The storm burst at last, and in crime and bloodshed

Wexford left every other scene of tumultuary violence completely in the

shade.

[[[WEXFORD INSURRECTION AND CONSEQUENT ATROCITIES]]]

|Wexford had long withstood the anarchy of the evil days. While

many counties in Ireland were disgraced by nocturnal robbery and

assassination, committed by Defenders and United Irishmen, for five

years previous to ‘97, it was the pride of the Wexford gentlemen to

boast that their county had remained in perfect tranquillity. But in

the autumn and winter of that year, and in the spring of ‘98, there were

well-grounded suspicions that the mass of the people had begun to be

infected by those baneful principles which since proved fatal to the

kingdom, that pikes were manufactured, and clubs had been formed,

in which illegal oaths had been administered. In April, however,

unequivocal symptoms that a disaffected spirit actuated the peasantry

became evident; and although the priests laboured hard to lead the

resident gentry to believe that no danger was impending, and the

people by thousands swore allegiance in the chapels, and expressed open

attachment to the Government, there is too much reason to conclude that

the plot had been long in preparation, and that the ferocious spirit

which marked the proceedings of the insurgents was not the wild

ebullition of a resentment produced by injudicious severity, but the

fruits of a long-cherished antipathy to those who dissented from them in

faith. It was the explosion of a frantic effort of the Papists to stamp

out and exterminate their Protestant fellow-countrymen.

There is no doubt violent measures produced great exasperation, and

that possibly a conciliatory policy might have averted the outbreak

altogether. ‘Not above six hundred men at most of the regular army or

militia were stationed in the county, the defence of which was almost

abandoned to the troops of yeomen and their supplementaries. The

magistrates in several districts employed themselves in ordering the

seizure, imprisonment, and whipping of numbers of suspected persons.

These yeomen being Protestants, prejudiced against the Romanists by

traditionary and other accounts of the former cruelties that sect

committed, fearing similar cruelties in case of insurrection, and

confirmed in this fear by papers found in the pockets of some prisoners,

containing the old sanguinary doctrines of the Romish Church, which

authorised the extermination of heretics, acted with a spirit ill-fitted

to allay religious hatred and prevent any feeling to rebels.

[[[CAPTAIN FATHER JOHN MURPHY OF BOULAVOGUE]]]

|Until Saturday, the 26th of May, the flame of rebellion remained

smouldering; but on that evening John Murphy, the curate or

coadjutor-priest of Boulavogue, gave the signal for a general rising,

which was too fatally responded to. A fire lighted on the hill of

Corrigrua was answered by another kindled on Boulavogue, and the

rapidity with which the volcano burst appears almost incredible. Murphy,

the rebel general, was the son of a petty farmer in the parish of Ferns,

where he was educated at a hedge school kept by a man of the name of

Gun. It appears by his testimonium and diploma, that he received holy

orders at Seville in Spain in the year 1785, and probably graduated

there as a doctor of divinity, as he assumes that title in his journal,

which was dropped in his retreat from Vinegar Hill, and found by Captain

Hugh Moore of the 5th Dragoons, aide-de-camp to General Needham.

Nothing could be more ferocious than the church-militant career of

this savage man. Every Protestant house in the parish of Kilcormick

was reduced to ashes, and such of their unfortunate owners as could be

seized were ruthlessly destroyed. These outrages proceeded entirely from

a truculent disposition--for mostly his victims were men who offered no

opposition--and when rashly attacked at a place called the Harrow, he

beat off the Camolin cavalry, and killed Lieutenant Bookey who commanded

it.

Whether the demon spirit which Murphy afterwards exhibited had been

provoked or not is a matter of controversy; some say that his house and

chapel had been burnt before he took the field, and others as positively

deny it. In searching through the evidence on record dispassionately,

I incline to the Tatter opinion, for when his house was burned the

furniture had been previously removed and hidden in a sand-pit, and when

his vestments were brought from the same concealment, the leader of the

loyalists observed, in reply to some insulting remark, ‘Punish the rebel

if you can, but offer no mockery to his religion.’

Early in his martial career Murphy commenced his murderous treacheries,

destroying the glebe house at Kyle and murdering the rector of

Kilmuckridge, Doctor Burrowes, and his family, under circumstances of

peculiar atrocity. The house was defended with barricades by the rector

and his parishioners at sunrise it was attacked by about five hundred

rebels. ‘It was vigorously defended for some time, many shots having

been fired by the assailants and the besieged. At last the rebels set

fire to the out-offices, which were quickly consumed, and soon after

to the dwelling-house, which in a short time was in a state of

conflagration. The rapid spread of the flames in the latter was caused

by the application of some unctuous combustible matter applied to the

doors and windows of the house, which the rebels frequently used in the

course of the rebellion.

‘The besieged being in danger of suffocation from the thickness of the

smoke, resolved to quit the house, however perilous it might be, and

this they were encouraged to do by Father Murphy, who assured them they

should not be injured if they surrendered themselves without further

resistance. Relying on his promise they quitted the house, on which

the rebels treacherously murdered Mr. Burrowes and seven of his

parishioners, and gave his son, a youth of sixteen, so severe a wound in

the belly with a pike, that it subsequently caused his death.

[[[CAROUSAL AND PLUNDER AT THE PALACE OF THE BISHOP OF FERNS]]]

|George Cruikshank has seized this characteristic incident for one of

his graphic pictures. It will be remembered that Murphy’s father came

from the parish of Ferns. The illustration is in itself sufficiently

graphic, and filled with pictorial details descriptive of the incident.

Maxwell has related, in reference to the plunder of the bishop’s palace,

an anecdote connected with it, which marks the total subversion of

principle, religious feelings, badly excited, will produce. An orphan

boy, whom the bishop had found naked and starving at the age of seven

years, and whom he had fed, clothed, and instructed afterwards, was

the leader of these marauders, showed them every valuable article of

furniture, and assisted them in breaking open the cellar. The bishop’s

fine library was plundered of its antique folios; these the rebels

converted into saddles.

[Illustration: 0500]

[[[CAMPS OF KILTHOMAS AND OULART HILLS]]]

|The first consequences of the Wexford rising was the assemblage of two

large bodies of insurgents, the one occupying the hill of Oulart, ten

miles southward of Gorey, in the direction of the town of Wexford; the

second taking a position nine miles westward of the former place, on a

ridge of the Slieve Buoye mountain, called Kilthomas hill. Camps were

established on the heights, and an immense number of the peasantry,

including every age and sex, flocked immediately to join the rebels.

Both camps were attacked, but with results painfully different. The

garrison of the little town of Carnew, consisting of nearly three

hundred yeomanry, mounted and dismounted, marched boldly against the

insurgents collected on Kilthomas, roughly estimated at about three

thousand men. Although, with favourable ground and enormous superiority

of numbers, it might have been expected that an attempt to dislodge the

rebels from their position would have failed, nothing could have been

more successful than the attack, and the royalists obtained a bloodless

victory. Here again, the unrelenting spirit of the times appeared, and

a very gallant and daring exploit was sullied by impolitic severity.

The attempt to disperse the second camp at Oulart was attended with

consequences not only disastrous to the troops engaged, but its results

caused afterwards an immensity of bloodshed. Through the imprudence of

an incompetent commanding officer, a very gallant detachment perished,

while the insurgents, encouraged by accidental success, acquired a false

but dangerous confidence which involved a fearful amount of atrocity,

with a reaction, in many cases to be excused, and in more to be

lamented.

On the morning of the 27th of May, Mr. Turner of Newfort arrived at

Wexford and announced that his own house had been attacked and robbed

of a quantity of arms, previously surrendered, and that the insurrection

had unequivocally broken out.

Intelligence presently came in of the murders and atrocities everywhere

committed in the neighbourhood, and also of the formation of a rebel

camp at Oulart. Thinking it advisable to crush the outbreak in its

birth, the yeomanry cavalry proceeded to scour the country, while

Captain Foote with a detachment of the North Cork militia, amounting to

no men, rank and file, marched in the direction of the rebel camp;

and in route to Oulart he was joined by a troop of yeomanry cavalry;

however, most of the yeomen in face of the enemy proved traitors and

deserted to the enemy. In rough numbers, the insurgent force might have

been set down at four to five thousand combatants. Although the advance

was made with every disregard of military caution, accident more than

determination enabled the rebels to profit from the gross mismanagement

of the force opposed to them. Contempt of an enemy, which creates

incaution, has often proved fatal. The rebels fled at the first onset,

and were pursued at full speed by the militia, who were so little

apprehensive of resistance, that no rank or order was observed. While

the rebels were making their escape with precipitation towards the

northern side of the hill, they were apprised that a large body of

cavalry had been seen that morning advancing against them in the

opposite direction, apparently with a design to intercept their flight

and co-operate with the militia by a double attack. As the Wexfordian

insurgents as yet were totally unacquainted with warfare, the onset of

cavalry was, to the imaginations of many among them, more terrible than

that of infantry. They therefore ignorantly supposed the cavalry to be

still in the neighbourhood; and while Father John Murphy exclaimed that

they must either conquer or perish, they turned desperately against the

militia, who had now arrived near the summit, almost breathless, and

charging them with their pikes, killed the whole detachment in an

instant, except the lieutenant-colonel, a sergeant, and three privates.

‘It appears,’ says Musgrave, ‘that the rebels were rendered bold and

desperate by intoxication, and that from twelve to fifteen of them

singled out, cut off, and attacked each of the soldiers, who did not

resign their lives but at a dear rate to their assailants.’

The consequences of this unfortunate disaster speedily evinced

themselves. Numbers of the peasantry who had hitherto remained neutral

repaired to the camp and joined the rebel standard; and in the same

ratio that the confidence of the insurgents increased, the spirit of

the royalists was abated. Fearful of an attack by numbers of savage men

under the intoxication of a first success, the little garrison of Gorey

determined to retreat at once on Arklow; and the movement was conceived

and executed with a celerity that caused the most afflicting distress to

crowds of helpless loyalists, who, dreading the ferocity of the rebels,

abandoned their homes and followed the retiring garrison as they best

could; the situation of these unfortunates was truly deplorable, and

their subsequent sufferings pitiable in the extreme.

[[[DESTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH AT ENNISCORTHY]]]

|Flushed with success, Murphy, the fighting priest of Boulavogue, now

turned his attention to the town of Enniscorthy, six miles distant from

his encampment. Its possession would be important; and as the garrison

amounted only to about three hundred men, of whom a hundred were North

Cork Militia and the remainder local yeomanry, there was every reason to

believe that an open town, accessible in many quarters and protected by

a feeble garrison, would offer to the overwhelming masses which should

assail it a short and unavailing defence. Accordingly, Father Murphy

determined to attack the place, and he carried his resolution into

effect early on the afternoon of the 28th of May.

From its dangerous vicinity to the rebel encampment the garrison of

the town apprehended, naturally enough, that the first effort of the

victorious insurgents would be directed against them, and they were

obliged, in consequence, to be vigilant and prepared. The duty of

patrolling and giving pickets was therefore most harassing; for three

days and nights they had been continually under arms; but though worn

out and exhausted, while reports and appearances were most discouraging,

they determined nevertheless to offer a gallant defence, and nobly they

realised their resolution.

Certain intelligence having been received on the morning of the 28th

that the town would be attacked early that afternoon, the drums beat to

arms and the garrison took the posts previously assigned to them. The

North Cork Militia occupied the bridge, a cavalry corps holding the

street connecting it with the town, while the Duffry gate hill, upon

the Carlow road, was protected by the yeomanry and infantry. The

market-house and castle had each a sergeant’s guard allotted for its

defence.

The ground taken up by the yeomanry was three or four hundred yards

in front of the Duffry gate, and on that point the rebels made their

opening attack. On perceiving the yeomanry in line, the insurgent

column halted and deployed, extending largely to the right and left, to

outflank the small body in their front and cut it from the town. This

done, they advanced, driving cattle in their front, and at the same

time opening a heavy and well-directed fire. (As the county of Wexford

abounds with water-fowl, the occupation of a fowler is so profitable

that numbers of the lower class of people are not only experts in the

use of fire-arms, but excellent marksmen.) The yeomanry replied to it

with effect, but dreading, from the extension of the rebel wings, that

they should be ultimately turned, they retired into the town, covered

by a charge of cavalry, which dispersed a body that pressed them too

closely, but inflicted on the gallant horsemen a very heavy loss.

The suburbs and the town itself were now on fire. A number of the

assailants had got in through by-ways unperceived, the rebel inhabitants

fired on the royalists from their windows (many lives of officers were

thus picked off in ambuscade), while, repulsed from an attempt upon the

bridge, the insurgents attempted to ford the river beyond the reach

of the fire of the North Cork Militia. Pressed by numbers totally

disproportionate, the yeomanry obstinately held their ground, and

although suffering heavily themselves, they cheered as they observed

that their own heavy and well-supported fusilade cut down the head of

the rebel column and checked its advance.

‘The streets,’ relates Musgrave, ‘were entirely involved in smoke, so

that the yeomen could not perceive the rebels till they were charged by

their pikes. The flames from the houses at each side of the street were

so great as to unite and form a fiery arch, by which their hair was

singed and the bear-skin in their caps was burnt. The loyalists, bravely

disputing every inch of ground, retreated to the market-house, an open

space like a square, where they made a determined stand and killed great

numbers of the enemy. By this effort the loyalists turned the scale and

drove the rebels completely out of the town, the streets of which at

each side of the river presented an awful scene of conflagration. While

the troops were thus engaged in the south side of the town, another body

of the rebels crossed the river, about three-quarters of a mile above

the bridge, but were soon routed by Captain Snowe. On this occasion his

men showed great dexterity as marksmen, seldom failing to bring down

such individual rebels as they aimed at. Captain Snowe then ordered

Captain Richards to charge, which he did most effectually, but with

heavy loss in killed and wounded.

‘As a party of the rebels, which came from Vinegar Hill towards the

glebe, still remained unassailed and their numbers seemed increasing,

they were attacked by Captain Drury, with half a company of the North

Cork Militia, and dispersed with considerable slaughter.’

Thus ended an action which lasted more than three hours, fought on

a very hot day, in the midst of a burning town, the disaffected

inhabitants of which set fire to their own houses to annoy the

loyalists, and fired on them from their windows with deadly effect,

picking out the loyalist leaders. In this action the yeomen and

Protestant inhabitants performed prodigies of valour in support of the

constitution and in defence of their property and their families.

‘It was generally believed that not less than five hundred of the rebels

were killed or wounded. The banks of the river and the island in it were

strewed with their dead bodies, and numbers of them fell in the streets.

To keep up the courage of the insurgents every artifice was used; for

even women, as if insensible of danger, were seen in the midst of the

carnage administering whiskey to their rebel friends.’

In this most gallant defence the loss sustained by the garrison fell

chiefly on the yeomanry and loyalists; nearly a third of the whole

amount employed were placed _hors de combat_, the greater proportion

being slain.

After the rebels were repulsed, the necessity of an instant retreat

became apparent. The town was on fire, and no longer tenable by a

garrison equally reduced in strength and numbers, the insurgents were

hanging in an immense force about the town, a night attack seemed almost

certain, and no hope could be held out that under existing circumstances

it could be repulsed. A council of war was held, and, after mature

deliberation, it was resolved to abandon the town and march on Wexford

by the eastern side of the river, by St. John’s. ‘From the suddenness

of the retreat, only a few of the Protestant inhabitants could accompany

the troops, and they could carry with them no other comforts or

necessaries but the apparel which they wore. Imagination cannot form a

more tragic scene than the melancholy train of fugitives, of whom some

were so helpless from their wounds, from sickness, the feebleness of old

age or infancy, that they could not have effected their escape had

not the yeomen cavalry mounted them on their horses. Some parents were

reduced to the dreadful necessity of leaving their infants in cottages

on the roadside, with but faint hope of ever seeing them again.

‘The town, the morning after the rebels got possession of it, presented

a dreadful scene of carnage and conflagration; many bodies were lying

dead in the streets, and others groaning in the agonies of death; some

parts of the place were entirely consumed, and in others the flames

continued to rage with inextinguishable fury. No less than 478

dwelling-houses and cabins were burned in the town and its suburbs,

besides a great number of stores, malt-houses, and out-offices.’

The rebel entrance of the town was marked by the atrocities of a

barbarous force, irritated by resistance, and now excited by the

accidental success which circumstances had given them.

[[[AN ACT OF VENGEANCE]]]

In the spirit of sheer destructiveness the rebels turned their exertions

to wrecking the Protestant church. Our artist has graphically pictured

the wild and lurid spectacle attending the wilful destruction of the

church at Enniscorthy; vestments, benches, the organ, the pulpit,

Bibles, and church furniture were devoted to feed the flames and make a

bonfire; meanwhile the triumphant insurgents are shown carrying off the

church bell as a trophy, which we find set up subsequently, a prominent

feature of the vast rebel camp in the vicinity.

[Illustration: 0506]

[[[THE CAMP ON VINEGAR HILL]]]

|Immediately after obtaining possession of Enniscorthy the rebels

proceeded to form an extensive encampment on Vinegar Hill, from which

the town, after its seizure, was garrisoned by rebel reliefs, sent down

from headquarters on the mountain. Immense numbers of the peasantry

flocked to this camp, and in a few days it was believed that fully ten

thousand men were there collected. As this was the point on which the

insurgents concentrated in greater force and for a longer time than on

any other during the brief period that elapsed from the _émeute_ to its

final suppression, and as it was also, unhappily, the scene, were

its atrocities recorded, that would picture civil war in revolting

colours--which may be fancied but not detailed--it may be interesting

here to describe its local position and the appearance it then

presented.

In a military point of view Vinegar Hill is strong. High grounds,

gradually rising, are crowned by a cone of bold ascent, while the

country beneath, being cultivated fields, is divided into numerous

enclosures, and intersected by stone walls, hedges, and trenches. On the

apex of the hill stood the ruins of a windmill; round the upper height

some rude field-works were thrown up, as well as on a lower ridge which

the rebels occupied as part of their position. For defence by irregular

troops, who trusted rather to numbers than to discipline, Vinegar Hill

was particularly favourable, for the numerous enclosures afforded safe

cover for skirmishers, who could with perfect impunity severely annoy

any columns advancing to assail the hill, and oblige an enemy to feel

his way with caution. Good roads wound round the base of the position,

and a command of the Slaney added to its military value.

Its local appearance was singular and picturesque, and perfectly in

keeping with a wild and guerilla sort of warfare. Although the weather

was particularly hot and night but nominal, a part of the insurgents

placed themselves under cover, and the position exhibited rather the

varied colouring of an Indian camp than the dazzling whiteness of ‘the

tented field.’ Wattles--as thin and flexible poles are termed in Irish

parlance--were overhung with blankets, tablecloths, chintz furniture,

and window curtains, plundered from the surrounding neighbourhood, while

in the centre, from the top of the ruined windmill, a green flag ‘dared

the battle and the breeze.’ A few guns and swivels were rudely placed

in battery, and in whatever else the rebel executive might have been

deficient, their commissariat, as the figures and records show, was

carefully attended to. A local board of field officers assembled every

day, and after their deliberations the larders and cellars of the

neighbouring gentry were put into extensive requisition. Vinegar Hill

was better provided with rude accommodations than any of the insurgent

stations, for the heights on which the rebel masses herded were

generally mere bivouacs, hurriedly taken up and as suddenly abandoned.

These posts they termed camps, though they were destitute of tents,

except a few for their chiefs, while the people remained in the open air

in vast multitudes, men and women promiscuously, some lying covered

with blankets at night, and some without other covering than the clothes

which they wore during the day. This mode of warfare was favoured by an

uninterrupted continuance of dry and warm weather, to such a length of

time as is very unusual in Ireland in that season, or any season of the

year. This was regarded by the rebels as a particular interposition

of Providence in their favour, and some among them are said to have

declared, in a prophetic tone, that not a drop of rain was to fall until

they should be masters of all Ireland. On the other hand, the same was

considered by the fugitive loyalists as a merciful favour of Heaven,

since bad weather must have miserably augmented their distress and

caused the death of many. In these encampments or stations, among such

crowds of riotous, undisciplined men, under no regular authority, the

greatest disorder may be supposed to have prevailed. Often when a rebel

was in a sound sleep in the night he was robbed by some associate of his

gun or some article considered valuable; and hence to sleep flat on the

belly, with the hat and shoes tied under the breast for the prevention

of stealth, was the general custom.

[Illustration: 0514]

[[[THE CAMP ON VINEGAR HILL]]]

‘The camp at Vinegar Hill presented a dreadful scene of confusion and

uproar. A number of female rebels, more vehement than the male, were

marching out to meet the army from Newtown Barry; this was a large body

which Father Roche led from Vinegar Hill to the attack of that town,

which took place the 1st of June. Great numbers of women were in the

camp. Some men were employed in killing cattle and in boiling them in

pieces in large copper brewing-pans; others were drinking, cursing, and

swearing; many of them were playing on various musical instruments which

they had acquired by plunder in the adjacent Protestant houses, the

whole producing a most disagreeable and barbarous dissonance.’--_Visit

to the Camp, Rossiters Affidavit_, printed in Musgrave’s _Appendix_, No.

XX.

They were in nothing more irregular than in the cooking of provisions,

many of them cutting pieces at random out of cattle scarcely dead

without waiting to dismember them, and roasting those pieces on the

points of their pikes, with the parts of the hide which belonged to them

still attached. The heads of cattle were seldom eaten, but generally

left to rot on the surface of the ground, as were often large portions

of the carcases after a few pieces had been cut away. From this practice

the decay of animal matter was rapid, and the stench of the encampment

in a few days became intolerable.

[[[THE FATAL PASS OF TUBBERNEERING]]]

|This incident, one of the most fatal episodes of the insurrection, was

due, like several others recounted, to the incompetence of the leaders;

a fine body of men were thus sacrificed, and the situation of the

loyalists was aggravated in consequence. The abandonment of Wexford

followed the succession of military mistakes. The peasantry, hounded on

by truculent priests and ferocious partisans, committed every enormity

which can be imagined, while the royalists and yeomanry emulated this

abominable cruelty, and, under the name of loyalty, too frequently

perpetrated wanton and savage reprisals. Confidence between men was

ended, and while the rebels dissimulated to obtain their end, the

royalist, shielded by the hand of power still predominant, robbed and

slaughtered ‘in the king’s name.’ On both sides there were violence

and treachery. It was an unholy contest, and while Popish

massacres were revolting, it cannot be denied that

Protestant atrocities were neither ‘few nor far between.’ Colonel

Walpole was detached from Dublin to reinforce General Loftus, that on

his junction he arrogated for himself an independent command, that

it was culpably acceded to, that he was ambitious to fight an action

without delay, and that to oblige a minion of a Lord-Lieutenant an

attack on the rebel position, the hill of Ballymore, was planned, it

being considered the safest method of gratifying ‘a carpet-knight’ whose

services had as vet been confined to the duties of the drawing-room.

The result may be imagined. Walpole led his fine division into a

well-prepared ambuscade in the fatal pass of Tubberneering, the guns

were taken, the commanders shot. ‘Suddenly from the enclosures a wild

yell burst forth, accompanied by a stream of musketry. Colonel Walpole

fell on the first fire; the confusion was tremendous, and to fight or

retreat impossible. The height and number of the fences on every side

made the ground most favourable for irregular and desultory warfare, as

the long pikes of the rebels reached nearly across the narrow road, and

those of the distracted soldiers who escaped the first close fire were

perforated from behind the hedges’ by invisible opponents. The surprise

of the troops was complete, dragoons and infantry were thrown in

helpless disorder on each other, and a scene of butchery ensued. The

column was now completely surrounded, discipline unavailing; an attempt

made by a detachment of the 4th Dragoon Guards to turn the enemy’s right

flank failed. After having sustained the attack for about three-quarters

of an hour with considerable disadvantage on the part of the king’s

troops, and having lost their commander and three pieces of artillery,

which were immediately turned against them, a retreat began in all the

confusion which might be expected from raw and inexperienced troops.

‘The rebels pressed them hard, a general dismay took place, which

would probably have been fatal to the whole of the column had not

Lieutenant-Colonel Cope of the Armagh Militia, who had been fortunately

in the rear of the column with a detachment of his own regiment, rallied

and formed them on the road to impede the progress of the enemy. He

gallantly disputed every inch of it for three miles. To this small

band of brave men, under the command of a cool and gallant officer,

the safety of those who escaped on that disastrous day may be entirely

attributed.

‘Walpole, a mere Castle _attache_, had been very improperly employed to

collect what troops could be spared from Naas, Kilcullen, and Baltinglas

to reinforce General Loftus.... Walpole assumed the duties of his

superior, planned ridiculous attacks, and finally sacrificed one of the

finest detachments in the field.’

[[[THE LOYAL LITTLE DRUMMER-BOY]]]

|Musgrave has thus related the touching incident of which George

Cruikshank has made an effective picture:--‘A drummer, named Hunter, of

the Antrim regiment, only some twelve years old, fell into the hands of

the rebels in the unfortunate affair in which Colonel Walpole lost his

life. He carried his drum with him, and when conducted to the town of

Gorey with some other prisoners, being ordered to beat it, actuated by

a spirit of enthusiastic loyalty, he exclaimed, “That the King’s drum

should never be beaten for rebels,” and at the same instant leaped on

the head and broke through the parchment. The inhuman villains, callous

to admiration of an heroic act even in an enemy, instantly perforated

his body with pikes.’

[Illustration: 0522]

The consequences of the slaughter at Tubberneering were precisely such

as might be expected. The royalists lost heart, and the insurgents

acquired a dangerous audacity. Every Protestant abandoned home and

property in despair, and more than a thousand individuals fled from

their once happy dwellings, with wives and children, and, without

food or shelter, endeavoured to seek safety elsewhere, and obtain

eleemosynary support from those who still possessed a home. In the

first place all, soldiers and civilians alike, fell back to Arklow, but,

feeling themselves insecure even there, the retreat was continued to

Wicklow.

As we have seen, the results of the insurgent success reacted most

disastrously; the rebels at once became masters of Gorey, and to the

army of Irish liberty in ‘98 the conquest of this town proved the reverse

of advantageous to the captors.

[[[INSURGENT OCCUPATION OF GOREY]]]

|For five days they halted in and about the town, drinking and

pillaging, destroying property not portable, and, as at Enniscorthy,

visiting their vengeance on the church. Had their fury been expended

on the building alone it would have been a matter of little import, but

unhappily the contest had now taken a religious colouring, so rancorous

and sanguinary that blood alone could satisfy party hatred and

thirst for vengeance, and the best interests of the cause itself were

sacrificed to stupid and unproductive brutalities, from which gray hairs

afforded no protection, nor boyhood could claim no immunity. To satisfy

this insensate vengeance upon inoffensive victims, military expediency

was disregarded, and important advantages lost sight of and utterly

sacrificed.

_The MS. Journal of a Field Officer_, in every sense an invaluable

guide to the true situation of those affairs which come within the

observations of this keen professional critic, dwells conclusively on

this point: ‘Providentially, the rebels had too many commanders; those

of the Wexford force being mostly priests, their attention was more

directed to the interests of their church by purging the land of

heretics than to the concerns of the “Irish Republic,” which the

northern leaders had in view. Consequently time was wasted in collecting

and piking Protestants, which might have been employed with far greater

advantage to the cause.’

[[[THE BATTLE OF ROSS]]]

|The operations of the rebel armies which we have already detailed,

namely, the attempt on Newtown Barry by the corps under Father Kearns,

and that on Gorey by the insurgents under the two Murphys and Perry

of Inch, with the intervening occurrence of Walpole’s defeat at

Tubberneering, must be connected by a simultaneous transaction,

probably, in military importance, the most interesting which marked the

outbreak.

The strongest of the insurgent corps had assembled on the hill of

Carrickbyrne, under the chief command of B. Baganel Harvey, with Father

Roche acting en second. Their encampment was six miles from the town

of Ross, of which it was their first and greatest object to obtain

possession.

The dangerous proximity of the rebel host had caused alarm for

the safety of the town, and, consequently, the garrison had been

strengthened. On the 5th of June the County Dublin Militia, commanded

by the popularly beloved Lord Mountjoy, with detachments from the Clare,

Donegal, and Meath Militia, 5th Dragoons, Midlothian Fencibles, and

English Artillery, occupied the place--a force amounting to 1400 men of

all arms, of which 150 were yeomen. General Johnson, a veteran officer,

commanded, and his heroic exertions won the day, and must shed a lasting

lustre upon his reputation as a courageous and able leader.

On the evening of the 4th June the rebel camp at Carrick-byrne broke up,

and the insurgents moved bodily to Corbethill, within a mile and a half

of Ross. The rebel hordes ‘moved by parishes and baronies, each having

a particular standard; in their way they stopped at a chapel, where

mass was said at the head of each column by priests, who sprinkled

an abundance of holy water on them.’--_Musgrave_. After driving in

a distant outpost they bivouacked on Corbethill for the night. The

royalists, fearing a surprise, remained under arms, the infantry and

guns in position on the southern and eastern faces of the town, the

yeoman infantry holding the bridge, and the cavalry formed on the quay.

Night passed, however, without alarm; and it was four o’clock on the

morning of the 5th before Baganel Harvey, who had been a few days before

elected to the chief command, sent a formal summons to General Johnson,

which unfortunately (as some say) was not delivered. Furlong, the rebel

leader, who carried it, was shot, through the ignorance of the advanced

sentry, who paid no respect to a white handkerchief he waved on

approaching the outposts.

_The MS. Journal of a Field Officer_ sums up the actual military

situation: ‘The movement upon Ross showed some head on the part of

Baganel Harvey, the object being to force the principal passage of the

Barrow, and, in conjunction with the insurgents of Kilkenny, bear down

upon Waterford, which was then very disaffected, weakly garrisoned, and

presented strong temptations in the way of plunder. But Harvey had

no idea of attacking Ross when that event took place, and there were

evidently no preparations made for it. Harvey expected, and with reason,

that the appearance of his masses on the hills which domineered the town

would have secured the active co-operation of the Kilkenny men from the

other side of the Barrow. And this would have been the case had time

allowed it, but Furlong was a popular leader among the rebels, and

when he was shot by a sentinel at the outpost the mass of the rebels,

maddened by the occurrence, rushed by a sudden impulse, in a mighty but

disordered torrent, along one side of the road on the Three-bullet Gate,

instead of making a combined movement on an open town, by which facility

of approach and enormous preponderance in numbers could not but have

succeeded.’ This argument is supported by the communication which

Furlong carried. On searching the pockets of the dead man the following

cartel was found:--

Sir--As a friend to humanity I request you will surrender the town

of Ross to the Wexford forces, now assembled against that town. Your

resistance will but provoke rapine and plunder, to the ruin of the most

innocent. Flushed with victory, the Wexford forces, now innumerable and

irresistible, will not be controlled if they meet with resistance. To

prevent, therefore, the total ruin of all property in the town I urge

you to a speedy surrender, which you will be forced to in a few hours,

with loss and bloodshed, as you are surrounded on all sides. Your answer

is required in four hours. Mr. Furlong carries this letter, and will

bring the answer.--I am, Sir,

B. B. Harvey,

General commanding, etc., etc.

Camp at Corbethill, half-past three o’clock morning,

June 5, 1798.

The death of Furlong is said to have precipitated the attack, for

immediately afterwards the rebels moved forward in dense masses,

cheering and yelling, and directing their march on the Three-bullet

Gate. The advance of this armed multitude--by some estimated as from

20,000 to 25,000 men--was described to me by an eye-witness as the most

singular spectacle imaginable. The irregularity of their array--partly

in close column and partly in line--had the effect of displaying their

enormous strength to full advantage; while the presence of several

priests, who were observed flitting through their ranks and haranguing

their deluded followers with certain assurances of victory, inspired an

enthusiastic fanaticism, which blinded them to danger and rendered them

additionally formidable. They pushed forward four guns and a cloud of

musketeers, some in extended order, and others heading the pikemen,

whose crowded columns occupied the whole road, far as the eye could

range.

As might have been expected, the pickets were roughly driven in, and,

in a wild rush made by the rebels on the troops in front of the

Three-bullet Gate, the latter were obliged to recede, and one of the

guns was captured. In turn, however, the troops rallied and drove back

the insurgents, and, perceiving their unsteadiness when mobbed together

in the repulse, General Johnson ordered the 5th Dragoons to charge. For

cavalry effect the ground was totally _un suite_, the numerous fences

enabling the rebels to avoid the charge, while, protected themselves,

they inflicted a heavy loss on men who very gallantly, but very

ineffectively, had thus assailed them at disadvantage.

An entrance to the town was gained, and while some of the rebels fired

the houses, others pushed forward towards the bridge. But the advance

by Neville Street was swept by the steady fire of a gun placed in the

market-place, which looked directly down the approach. Notwithstanding

the murderous fire which fell on a dense mass of men, wedged together

in a narrow street, and which shore the head of the column down as

frequently as it came forward, others succeeded those who fell, and

fresh numbers momentarily appeared. The troops, terrified at the armed

crowds who swarmed through the Three-bullet Gate, and who, maddened by

inebriety and fanaticism, seemed rather to court death than avoid it,

the defenders at last despairing of offering a longer resistance against

myriad hordes of infuriated fiends, retreated across the bridge.

[[[BATTLE OF ROSS--‘COME ON, BOYS! HER MOUTH’S STOPPED!’]]]

|George Cruikshank, with his native genius for selecting effective and

sensational episodes for pictorial delineation, has seized an actual

incident which more resembles the effort of a romancer’s imagination

than an actuality of stern warfare. The illustration is founded upon one

of the paragraphs given by Maxwell in confirmation of his statement that

the hordes of rebels apparently courted destruction rather than safety.

[Illustration: 0530]

Says our historical authority:--‘One rebel, emboldened by fanaticism and

drunkenness, advanced before his comrades, seized a gun, crammed his hat

and wig into it, and cried out, “Come on, boys! her mouth is stopped!”

At that instant the gunner laid the match to the gun and blew the

unfortunate savage to atoms. Incredible as this instance of savage

ignorance may appear, the fact has been verified by the affidavit of a

person who saw it from a window.’

[[[BATTLE OF ROSS--GENERAL JOHNSON RETRIEVES THE WANING FORTUNES OF THE

DAY]]]

|It appeared, beyond the causes already related as having induced

Harvey and his rebel myriads to feel confident of easily securing the

strategically important town of Ross, that the insurgents had been

induced to think that the militia regiments at Ross, from being almost

entirely composed of Romanists, would have either joined them in

the action, or offered a feeble opposition. The Clare regiment

was considered friendly, and the Dublin County were believed not

particularly loyal or trustworthy. _The MS. Journal of a Field Officer_

is enlightening upon these points:--‘Be this as it may, their

colonel, Lord Mountjoy, was heading them up the street leading to the

Three-bullet Gate when he met his death by a traitorous shot, and the

attachment which his men bore him superseded every other feeling but

a desire for revenge. Although they had retired at first before

the torrent, they rallied instantly, and showed no appearance of

disaffection afterwards, but fought stoutly at Vinegar Hill. Lord M. was

riding a little way ahead of the regiment when he was treacherously shot

from a window by a baker’s boy. Such were the results of the fall of

Furlong on the one side, and the death of Lord Mountjoy on the other.’

The forced abandonment of the bridge was a heavy repulse. Virtually

the day was lost, for although a small party of the royalists, under

Sergeant Hamilton, still held most gallantly a position in the vicinity

of the Three-bullet Gate, had the insurgents followed up their

success, a total and bloody defeat of the king’s troops must have been

unavoidable. But, once within the town, drink and plunder engrossed the

attention of the majority, while the admirable gallantry of that brave

old man who commanded the retreating royalists retrieved the fortunes of

the day.

Crossing to the Kilkenny side, General Johnson rallied the fugitives and

urged them to follow him once more. ‘Will you desert your General?’ he

exclaimed to the disheartened militia; but this appeal was coldly heard.

‘And your countryman, too?’ he added. The chord of national honour was

touched, a cheer answered it, the old man wheeled his horse round, and,

riding in front, brought back his rallied troops to the fight,

and, rejoining the staunch few who still held the post beside the

Three-bullet Gate, announced that a large reinforcement had just arrived

from Waterford. When the fortune of a doubtful day is in the balance,

a feather turns it frequently. Such was the case at Ross. The troops

cheered, and plied their musketry with additional spirit and excellent

effect, and, turning the rebel rear, put their massive column into

a confusion which proved irretrievable, and at last, with desperate

slaughter, drove them fairly from the town. The exhaustion of the

garrison prevented anything being attempted beyond a brief pursuit in

the direction of Corbet Hill, while the rebels made no effort to rally

and renew the action, but went off dispersedly, some to their old camp

at Carrickbyrne, and others to a new position which they had taken on a

height called Slieve Keilter, some four miles’ distance from the town.

In this, the most sanguinary and hardly contested action of the

insurrection, commencing at five in the morning and ending at three in

the afternoon, the loss on both sides was immense, although in gross

numbers wholly disproportionate. Musgrave states the rebels killed to

have exceeded 2500, besides the many ‘carried off on cars.’ Before the

walls, between Three-bullet and Bunnion Gates, and in the cross lanes

and streets which led directly to the market-place, the slaughter was

enormous.

In Chapel Lane the rebels lay three deep, and throughout the approaches

to the main guard the streets were heaped with corpses.

The defence of this post, and the assistance afforded to the few brave

men who held it, were characteristic of the desperate fighting which

marks the uncompromising spirit that religious and political antipathies

produce. A most gallant soldier, Sergeant Hamilton of the Donegal

Regiment, with sixteen men and two ship-guns, indifferently mounted,

were posted at the intersection of four streets in the immediate

vicinity of the jail. When the troops retreated over the bridge,

Hamilton was recommended to remove the spare ammunition he had in charge

and quit a post where now he must remain isolated and unsupported. His

reply was, ‘Never, but with life!’ and though frequently assailed by

hundreds, he laned them literally with grape-shot, covering the approach

to the guns with dead and dying men, and through every turn of a

doubtful conflict resolutely maintaining his ground.

Although the leading streets were completely under his fire, the gallant

sergeant was open to attack from a narrow lane immediately beside the

main guard, where, sheltered from the cannon, the rebels could form in

security; and, no doubt, from that point they would have carried the

post by a sudden onset had not a fortunate circumstance afforded the

Donegal soldiers protection from the threatened danger.

The house of a loyalist called Dowesley was in the Backhouse Lane, and

occupied by the family and a lame pensioner. The part of the lane where

the rebels were safe from the fire of Hamilton’s guns was, however,

commanded by Dowesley’s windows; and whenever the insurgents attempted

to form and attack the main guard, a close and constant fusilade from

the little garrison of the house drove them from a place where they

expected to find shelter while collecting for their intended attack.

As fast as the muskets were discharged the old soldier quickly reloaded

them, adding half a dozen buck-shot to the bullet, and so deadly was the

fire from Dowesley’s dwelling that upwards of fifty bodies were found

after the action heaped together in the lane.

Mr. Tottenham, the proprietor of Ross, employed six carts and a great

many men for two entire days in collecting the bodies of the slain. Most

of those found in the town were thrown into the river and carried off

with the tide. The remainder were flung into a fosse outside the town

wall and buried there. The conflict at Ross might have been shortened

had the Roscommon regiment, which had been detached from Waterford early

on the morning of the action, completed its march and brought its timely

reinforcement to the exhausted garrison. It was also very fortunate the

Roscommon regiment returned to Waterford that night, as the rebels,

who were numerous and well organised there, meditated an insurrection,

imagining Ross had been taken. The next day the Roscommon regiment moved

a second time from Waterford and reached Ross with little opposition,

although during the short interval which had occurred the country had

risen _en masse_. On the adjacent hills parties of rebels were seen,

and an arch of the Glynmore bridge had been partially broken, but the

colonel planked it and passed his guns easily across. A body of rebels,

who showed themselves upon a height, gave way after a round or two from

the cannon, previously murdering fifteen of the refugee militiamen who

had fled from Ross the day before, fell into these ruffians’ hands, and

now paid the penalty of their cowardice.

With the battle of Ross subsequent atrocities, which have placed the

Wexford insurrection fearfully pre-eminent in crime, were connected. One

foul deed, the massacre at Scullabogue, infinitely surpassed all others,

and, with the massacres perpetrated wholesale on Wexford Bridge and

Vinegar Hill, has cast a stain on Irish character that another century

will scarcely remove. One reads, almost with incredulity, of Autos-da-fe

and Eves of St. Bartholomew, and blesses God, when he finds the

narrative is true, that his lot was not cast in an age of cruelty

and darkness. But the narration of scenes which discoloured the Irish

rebellion makes one blush to think that the wolfish wretches who were

the actors therein bore the common name of man. It is a revolting detail

that historic impartiality forces on the writer, and it shall be briefly

despatched.

[[[MASSACRE AT SCULLABOGUE]]]

|When the rebels encamped on Carrickbyrne they established an outpost

at the house of Scullabogue, which had been deserted by its proprietor,

Captain King. A large barn was attached to the mansion; it was 34 feet

long, 15 feet in breadth, and 12 feet high. This outhouse and the

mansion itself had been made a prison wherein to deposit the unfortunate

prisoners who by their loyalty or their difference in religious faith

had incurred the displeasure of the rebels, and fell after the outbreak

into their hands; and on the morning when the rebels marched on the

attack of Ross, 230 ill-fated victims were then confined in a building,

which proved at once their prison and their grave. A rebel guard was

left to secure the captives, amounting to 300 men, under the command of

three subordinate leaders, named Murphy of Loughnageer, Devereux, and

Sweetman. The particulars of the butchery which took place on the fatal

5th of June will be best understood by abstracts from evidence upon

oath, given on the trials of some of the monsters implicated in this

hellish sacrifice. Any person who wishes for more extensive details

of this most atrocious transaction will find them duly verified in the

voluminous appendix attached to Musgrave’s _Memoirs_.

The depositions of sundry persons are briefly abridged. One who escaped

the massacre, by the bribery of a rebel and the virtue of a priest’s

protection, gives the following account of this horrible transaction. He

states that, when the rebel army began to give way at Ross, an express

was sent to Murphy to put the Protestant prisoners to death, as the

king’s troops were gaining the day; but Murphy refused to comply without

a direct order from the general. That he soon after received another

message to the same purpose, with this addition, that ‘the prisoners,

if released, would become very furious and vindictive.’ That, shortly

after, a third express arrived, saying, ‘the priest gave orders that

the prisoners should be put to death.’ That the rebels, on getting the

sanction of the priest, became outrageous, and began to pull off their

clothes, the better to perform the bloody deed. That, when they were

leading the prisoners out from the dwelling-house to shoot them, he

turned away from such a scene of horror, on which a rebel struck him

with a pike upon the back, and said he would ‘let his guts out if he did

not follow him!’ That he then attended the rebels to the barn, in which

there was a great number of men, women, and children, and that the

rebels were endeavouring to set fire to it, while the poor prisoners,

shrieking and crying out for mercy, crowded to the back door of the

building, which they forced open for the purpose of admitting air.

That for some time they continued to put the door between them and the

rebels, who were piking or shooting them. That, in attempting to do so,

their hands or fingers were cut off. That the rebels continued to force

into the barn bundles of straw to increase the fire. At last, that the

prisoners having been overcome by the flame and smoke, their moans and

cries gradually died away in the silence of death--and all became still.

[Illustration: 0538]

The witness, during this dreadful scene, saw a child, who got under the

door and was likely to escape, although much hurt and bruised, when a

rebel perceiving it, thrust his pike through it and threw it into the

flames. While the rebels were shooting the prisoners in front of the

dwelling-house, a party of men and women were engaged in stripping and

rifling the dead bodies; and the prisoner, Phelim Fardy, called out

to them to avoid the line of his fire (as he was busily employed in

shooting the prisoners), and after saying so, he fired at a man who was

on his knees, who instantly fell and expired. Another ruffian, whose

barbarities made him conspicuous, trampled on the dead and wounded

bodies, and behaved otherwise in such a ferocious manner as to obtain

from the rebels the appellation of ‘the true-born Roman.’

The barn was so limited in size that suffocation must have soon taken

place from the great number of people compressed into a space so small;

for besides the burning of the thatched roof of the barn, the rebels fed

it by introducing blazing faggots on their pikes.

Richard Grandy, who was present, swore the prisoners were led out by

fours to be shot, and that the rebels who pierced them when they fell

took a pleasure in licking their spears.

A gentleman present, who had a narrow escape, assured the writer that a

rebel said he would try the taste of orange blood, and that he dipped a

tooth-pick in the wound of one of the Protestants who was shot and put

it into his mouth.

Whenever a body fell on being shot, the rebel guards shouted and pierced

it with their pikes.

They burned there several wives and some of the children of the

North Cork Militia in the barn, who were Roman Catholics; but it was

sufficient to provoke their vengeance that they were connected with the

soldiers of an heretical king.

The most innocent victims were sacrificed; a girl was brought there in

place of her sister; she was seized and sent to the barn, and her father

shortly after, having gone there with his poor old wife to solicit her

liberation; the parents and child were thrust into the barn together,

and burned with the other unfortunates. No less than twenty-four

Protestants were taken from the village of Tintern, about eight miles

distant, many of them old and feeble, and led in one drove to the barn,

where they perished. Two Romanists, serving-men, were burnt in the

barn because they would not consent to the massacre of their Protestant

masters. Another Romanist, who was travelling with a royalist pass for

his protection, was intercepted by the rebels, who considered the pass

an emblem of loyalty; they committed him to the barn, with a son who

happened to accompany him, and both perished in the flames.

In his history of these events Taylor, after recording the dreadful

massacre of Scullabogue, thus describes the retreat of the rebels from

New Ross, and pictures Baganel Harvey’s feelings when he viewed the

scene of the fearful tragedy enacted at the fatal barn: ‘After ending

this horrid massacre, the rebels marched (exulting in their diabolical

achievements) towards New Ross, but the destroying angel had gone before

them, and miserably defeated that huge army in which they trusted. As

they proceeded to reinforce their brother rebels they met multitudes of

the wounded returning, some crawling along as well as they could, others

on horses and on cars; some were shot through different parts of the

body, while others had broken arms, legs, and thighs. Going on further,

they met the remnant of the main body retreating in the greatest

confusion, hurry, and noise, bringing with them cars full of the dead

and wounded. They took their station on Carrickburn that night; several

stole home, and never joined them more, particularly those of Barony

Forth, who, though a race of cowards, were cruel in the extreme.’

The next morning Baganel Harvey was in the greatest anguish of mind when

he beheld Scullabogue House and the barn, where the murdered Protestants

were to be seen in every attitude. They lay so close, that several were

standing up against the walls, and many lying in heaps in each other’s

arms among the ashes of the timber of the house, while their bodies

looked frightful, being burned to a cinder. He turned from the scene

with horror, wrung his hands, and told those around him that ‘as

innocent people were burned there as ever were born, and that their

conquests for liberty were at an end.’ He then said privately to a

friend, ‘I see now my folly in embarking in any cause with these people.

If they succeed I shall be murdered by them; if they are defeated,

I shall be hanged.’ Now convinced of the sanguinary feelings of his

followers, he was determined to put a stop to it, as far as in his power

lay, and that day he issued a proclamation, had it printed, sent many

copies to Vinegar Hill, Wexford, and Gorey, and distributed them over

the country.

On Saturday, the 9th of June, 184 skeletons were cleared out of the

barn, thrown into a ditch near the place, and slightly covered with

clay.

There is every reason to believe that this horrible atrocity occasioned

to all but the lowest barbarians, who were banded with the rebel forces,

feelings of alarm and disgust. Almost the last act of Baganel Harvey

before he was deprived of his command was the publication of a general

order to restrain future acts of violence, under the penalty of death;

and he originated a subscription--in which many rebel leaders joined--to

pay for the interment of the poor sufferers.

Years afterwards, record all the authorities who have dwelt on this

cruel episode, it was the greatest wish of such of the Wexford rebels as

survived, to prove that, in whatever crimes they might have participated

largely, they were wholly unconnected with the burning of Scullabogue.

[[[FATHER M. MURPHY OF BALLYCANOO AND THE HERETIC BULLETS]]]

|Of the rebel chiefs, the priests were decidedly the most despotic, and

too often the most unrelenting, to the unhappy men who became prisoners

to the banditti they commanded. One of the most truculent of these

spiritual chiefs was Father Michael Murphy of Ballycanoo, a prominent

church-militant general in the Wexford campaigns, who met his fate at

the battle of Arklow. After the priest’s death the following edifying

epistle, addressed to a Dublin tradesman, was found on his body; this

letter, as Musgrave suggests, in the constant hurry and confusion in

which he had been kept, probably in preparing for the attack of Arklow,

the Father had neither time nor opportunity to forward:--

Gorey, 6th June 1798.

Friend Houston--Great events are ripening. In a few days we shall meet.

The first-fruits of your regeneration must be a tincture of poison and

pike in the metropolis against heretics. This is a tribunal for such

opinions. Your talents must not be buried as a judge. Your sons must be

steeled with fortitude against heresy, then we shall do; and you shall

shine in a higher sphere. We shall have an army of brave republicans,

100,000, with fourteen pieces of cannon, on Thursday before Dublin; your

heart will beat high at the news. You will rise with a proportionate

force.--Yours ever, M. Murphy.

Decipher B.I.K.M.Q.Y....

The plans disclosed in this letter came near to complete realisation;

but for the events of Ross and Arklow, who can say that the results

foreshadowed in the intercepted letter of the slain priest might not

have been realised to the very letter?

The lowest ruffians had become leaders of the mob, and several monsters,

who desecrated the holy orders intrusted to them, encouraged the

barbarities of their besotted followers and pandered to their

superstitions. Among these wretches Murphy of Bannow and Roche of

Paulpearsay were conspicuous. The latter, like Murphy of Ballycanoo,

was a bullet-catcher, and while he occasionally distributed to his flock

balls which had been caught in action, he promised an immunity from

danger to the faithful--for a consideration. ‘He would give them

gospels,’ he said (they were generally sewed to a brown-coloured tape),

‘to hang about their necks, which would make the person who wore

it proof against all the powers of heretical artillery; but that

notwithstanding their extraordinary utility to the Irish army, they

would be of no avail unless they were purchased. The price to the better

sort of people was half-a-crown; but as the poorer were zealous in the

glorious cause, he would only ask from them a sixpence.’ Says Taylor,

‘Thousands of these gospels were made and speedily sent round the

country.’

[Illustration: 0546]

In the heat of action, on every repulse, and when his deluded followers

retreated, Murphy of Ballycanoo had induced fresh victims to come

forward, and, blinded against danger by whisky and fanaticism, they

rushed on more than one occasion to the very muzzles of the guns. Were

the fact not accredited beyond a doubt, it would not be believed that

the drunken scoundrel persuaded the unhappy savages who obeyed his

orders that his person was impervious to heretical balls, producing a

handful of musket-bullets, which he averred had struck him during the

action, or had been caught as they innocently whistled by. However

potent the spell might be that saved the worthy churchman from lead,

it proved inefficient against ‘cold iron.’ A round-shot from one of the

Durham guns struck him down while leading these ignorant wretches to the

charge; the ruffian went to his account, and his followers broke finally

and disbanded. When the warlike Murphy fell he was but a few paces from

the barricade, and was waving a banner over his head emblazoned with a

huge cross and the motto of ‘Death or Liberty.’

[[[THE BATTLE OF ARKLOW]]]

|The consternation which the intelligence of Walpole’s destruction

occasioned in the metropolis may be easily imagined. Many families

quitted the kingdom in despair. This, probably, was the gloomiest moment

of that fearful period, but the unbounded loyalty and devotion of the

Dublin Protestants shone out with increasing brilliancy, and assisted to

dispel the gathering cloud.

In the metropolis the yeomanry amounted to nearly 4000 men, now armed,

well disciplined, and purged from those traitors who, but a few weeks

before, had thronged their ranks. With perfect confidence the city

was intrusted to their protection, and from the few regular troops in

garrison, the Cavan regiment, with a detachment of Reay Fencibles, were

despatched to reinforce the troops in Wicklow, and enable the royalists

to rally and recover the ground they had lost.

[[[FATHER M. MURPHY OF BALLYCANOO AND THE HERETIC BULLETS]]]

The troops were forwarded by carriages specially impressed, the command

given to General Needham, and on the 6th of June the column quitted

Wicklow, and after passing a deserted country and being joined by some

yeomanry and armed loyalists, it entered Arklow early the same evening;

some straggling rebels retiring from the town, where they had loitered,

plundering and drinking, on the cavalry advanced guard appearing by the

Dublin road.

The reception of the troops by the inhabitants was enthusiastic, for

many, under fear of death, had already abandoned their houses to embark

in fishing boats, and escape from a place which they expected to become

an immediate scene of savage violence.

During the two succeeding days (7th and 8th of June) the commanding

officer was engaged in making dispositions for the defence of the town

and in selecting a position. Ground was marked out capable of being

occupied by a body of troops so limited in number as the garrison; and

while such fences were preserved as would afford cover to the royal

light troops from which to annoy an advancing enemy, others that could

neither mask their movements or interrupt the play of the guns were

levelled and removed. Meanwhile the country was carefully patrolled,

and alarm posts assigned to the different corps to take up on the rebels

being reported to be in motion.

The morning of the 9th came. At noon a wing of the Durham Fencibles

marched in under the command of an excellent officer, Colonel Skerrett,

affording a well-timed and most effective reinforcement to the garrison,

and, in consequence of this arrival, General Needham made a slight

change in his dispositions, and never was a little army more curiously

composed than the morning state of that of Arklow exhibited on the day

of the attack upon the town.

As the evening came on, an advanced picket announced the appearance

of the insurgents, and consequently an infantry outpost at the

Charter-house was called in and replaced by a cavalry patrol, while by

the two great approaches to the town--the seaside road and that leading

to Coolgreney--dense masses were seen moving to the attack. By the

former road one great column directed its march against the lower part

of the town called the Fishery; by the latter an immense mass, under the

command of Father Murphy of Ballycanoo, threatened the upper part of

Arklow, and thus endangered the right and rear of the royalist position.

To deploy their unwieldy masses appeared to be a task beyond the power

of their leaders, for more than half an hour was consumed in the

attempt, and when they did effect the change the line was irregular and

disordered, at some parts merely in rank entire, and at others six files

deep.

The royalists were already in position, the line being slightly curved,

the flanks refused, and each protected by battalion guns, with two

six-pounders nearly in the centre. The hedges were lined by the Suffolk

and Tyrone Militia and part of the supplementary yeomen, with a small

party posted in the churchyard and another at the bottom of the street

which looked upon the bridge. These posts were occupied to defend the

lower town. The barrack walls had been provided with a ‘banquette’ (a

wooden stage attached to high walls, at an elevation which will allow

the defenders to fire over the parapet), and supplied with musqueteers,

while the upper end of the street was barricaded with carts and lumber,

and defended by part of the Antrim regiment and a field-piece. Generally

the cavalry were formed on the bridge and sands. Taking the local

character of the place and the small number of its defenders into

consideration, the disposition of the troops was very judicious and

creditable to General Needham.