CHAPTER XVII.

ATTACK UPON CLONARD-INSURRECTION AT CASTLECOMER-SUBSEQUENT MOVEMENTS AND FINAL DISPERSION OF THE REBELS.

WHEN Wexford was thus liberated from the great masses of its insurgent population, before we review either the causes which kept the country so long unsettled afterwards, or the measures adopted by the Irish Government to effect a general tranquillity, it will be better to describe the ulterior proceedings of the Wexford rebels, and trace their further progress until the period of their final dispersion.

We have already stated that the scene of their predatory warfare was changed from their native county to Kildare, and that there they were reinforced by the insurgents commanded by Michael Reynolds. The junction produced little advantage, except in increasing the numbers of a tumultuary rabble, in whom there was neither unity of purpose, nor any fixed plan of future operations. Every leader had some object of his own, none a particle of military talent-and their stratagic conceptions were as erroneous, as the execution was feeble and contemptible.

Perry, despairing of doing any mischief in Wexford, as it was now so well defended, when joined by a strong body of insurgents under the command of Michael Aylmer, intended to penetrate into the North of Ireland, where he expected to meet with a cordial co-operation. But Aylmer prevailed on him to abandon his intention, and declared that it was more advisable to attack Clonard, a town on the confines of Kildare and Meath, and situated on the river Boyne, as there was but a small force to defend it; and afterwards march by Kilbeggan to the Shannon, and surprise Athlone; where, from its central position, great advantages might be expected to arise. This plan was accordingly adopted; and their united forces, amounting to four thousand men, on the 11th of July, marched to the attack of Clonard.

Many very gallant exploits were performed during this short and sanguinary period by loyalist irregulars; but probably, the defence of Clonard may be placed foremost among numerous occurrences, in which the boundless gallantry of a determined handful of daring spirits repulsed the overwhelming masses to which they were opposed, and proved that no physical superiority can quench the courage of men devoted to home and altar, and determined" to do or die."

The little garrison of Clonard consisted of a weak corps of yeoman infantry, and its commander was a self-taught soldier. But military talent is intuitive,—and Lieutenant Tyrrell proved that the ruder the storm, the more extensively the resources of a brave man will be developed.

On being apprized that the rebel column was in march, Tyrrell

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made the best dispositions for defence which his small force permitted. He occupied a turret which domineered the road with half a dozen musketeers, and, with the remaining twenty, retired into the old mansion-house. Having selected his best marksmen, they were placed at such of the windows as offered the best positions for firing with effect upon the assailants-while the remainder of the corps were secured behind the walls, and employed in loading spare muskets, to replace the firearms when discharged.

The rebel cavalry, amounting in rough numbers to three hundred, formed an advanced guard, and were commanded by a man named Farrall. Unconscious that the garden turret was occupied, they came forward in a trot, and the first intimation that they were already under fire, was conveyed by a shot from the youngest Tyrrell-a boy only fifteen years old, which mortally wounded the rebel captain. A volley from the other loyalists emptied several rebel saddles; a panic ensued; and the horsemen galloped out of musket range, leaving several of their companions dead upon the road.

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With more caution and better success, the rebel footmen came forward under shelter of a hedge, and, lining an opposite fence, they opened a sharp fire on the turret, while the column itself pushed forward to surround the house, and unite itself with another division which had advanced to join them by a cross road. To cut off all communication, and prevent the garrison from receiving reinforcements, the bridge was occupied by a rebel guard-but as it lay directly under the fire of the house, half a score of the occupants were rapidly shot down-the bridge cleared of its defenders-the western road laid open, and the garrison communication maintained.

In both their first attempts the insurgents were heavily repulsedbut defeat seemed only to exasperate them, and they again came forward to the attack. Penetrating by the rear, an immense number filled the garden, and seized the lower portion of the turret. As the ladder had been drawn up by the defenders of the upper story, the rebels, by climbing on each other's shoulders, attempted to force through the trapway-but every one who tried it perished. In vain they fired through the floor from below, and struck their pikes through the ceiling-still the fatal fire of the loyalists was kept up-at every shot a rebel felland on the ground-floor lay seven-and-twenty bodies. At last, despairing of success, they procured a quantity of straw, and fired the building. To force a passage through the rebels was almost a desperate attempt, but to perish in the flames, which had now seized the building, was the sad alternative. Two yeomen were killed in their effort at escape-but, fortunately, the other four, by jumping from a window into a hay-yard, under cover of the garden-wall, succeeded in reaching the main body who were posted in the dwelling-house.

For six long hours this unequal contest had been maintained, and still no impression had been made upon the gallant royalists. To confuse the garrison, the assailants set fire to the toll-house and adjacent cabins-but the conflagration served no better purpose than to consume their own slain, whose bodies they flung into the burning houses.

Happily, succour was at hand-and at five in the evening a reinforcement was descried by the wearied royalists, advancing rapidly to relieve them.

"One of the yeomen who had been excluded by the sudden shutting of the gates in the morning, finding he could be of no use in defending the house, repaired to Kinnegad, and represented the alarming situation of his friends at Clonard; upon which, Lieutenant Houghton, with fourteen of the Kinnegad infantry, and a serjeant, with eleven Northumberland fencibles (this being all the force that could be spared), immediately marched to their succour. The pass by the bridge having been kept open in the manner before related, Lieutenant Tyrrell now sallied from the house, and soon effected a junction with this reinforcement. A few volleys completely cleared the roads, and having placed the Northumberland fencibles and Kinnegad infantry in such situations as most effectually to gall the enemy in their retreat from the garden, the lieutenant himself undertook the hazardous enterprise of dislodging them from thence.

"At this time it is supposed there were four hundred rebels in the garden; a large body being posted on a mount planted with old fir trees, which afforded considerable protection, while many lay concealed behind a privet hedge, from whence they could see distinctly every person who entered the garden, though unperceived themselves. The brave Tyrrell, at the head of a few chosen men, now rushed into the garden, and was received by a general discharge from both bodies of the enemy; but he instantly attacked the party behind the hedge, which being defeated, retired to the mount. Here a warm action ensued, the enemy appearing determined to maintain this advantageous situa tion; but the yeomen, though fatigued with the heat and burden of the day, and six of them badly wounded, persevered with the most undaunted courage, and directed such a steady and well-directed fire against the mount, that the enemy were at length dispersed, and in their flight, the Northumberland fencibles and Kinnegad infantry made great havoc among them."

The rebel loss, when it is remembered that it was inflicted by a garrison not numbering thirty men, may appear to be overstated. In killed and wounded it was said to reach two hundred. Nor is there any reason to question the accuracy of the return. A close and welldirected fire was maintained for half the day-and some of the yeomanry were supposed to have discharged one hundred rounds a man. After this severe repulse, they retreated to Carbery, and plundered the mansion of Lord Harburton-and next day entered Meath, by John's-town and the nineteen-mile house.

On the 12th of July, they were again overtaken, brought to action, and defeated by a detachment under Colonel Gough-hunted afterwards by General Myers, and driven upon Slane, and encountered and routed by General Meyrick. In all these affairs they suffered a con

*Taylor's History.

tinued loss, and at last had become so totally disorganized, that, as a body, they ceased to have existence.

While endeavouring to escape, Perry and Kearns were arrested by a couple of yeomen. Their trial was short, and their execution immediate. The former died firmly and with perfect resignation; but although the priest had undergone the ordeal before,* "he was sullen and silent, except when he upbraided Perry for his candour in frankly confessing his guilt."

The horde of insurgents with whom Father John Murphy, of Boulavogue, escaped from Vinegar-hill, retreated through the Scullaghgap, and selected Kilkenny as their field of future operations. Their progress was marked by the customary atrocities of plundering and murder, and the line of march towards Castlecomer might have been readily traced by property destroyed and houses laid in ashes.

On the night of the 22nd, they burned the village of Kiledmond, and at daylight the next morning, proceeded to Gore's-bridge, a little town upon the Barrow, then garrisoned by half a company of Wexford militia, and a serjeant's party of the 4th dragoon guards, both under the command of Lieutenant Dixon.

On receiving certain information that the rebels were moving on the town, the lieutenant sent an express to apprize Sir Charles Asgill, who commanded at Kilkenny, that Father Murphy was in marchbut the roads were so much infested with insurgents, that the mission failed, and the dragoons were obliged to return. Determined, notwithstanding the weakness of his little garrison, to hold the town if possible, and not aware that the Barrow was fordable in many places, Lieutenant Dixon barricadoed the bridge, and there awaited the threatened onset of the enemy.

In a few minutes afterwards the adjoining heights were crowned with rebels, while a heavy column advanced by the Kiledmond-road. Too late, the commander of the royalists discovered the mistake he had committed in taking a position that was not tenable. In a bootless attempt to retreat, at Low Grange the party was surrounded and made prisoners the officer effecting an escape, by mounting behind a dragoon. Promises of protection given to the soldiers to induce them to lay down their arms were scandalously violated, and in a few hours after their surrender, six privates of the Wexford, two of the 4th dragoons, and nine Protestant prisoners, were savagely butchered at Kellymount, by the orders of a sanguinary ruffian named Devereux,t

* In 1794, Kearns was in Paris, and in the reign of terror was seized upon and actually hanged up. Being a tall and corpulent man, the lamp-iron bent beneath his weight, his feet touched the ground, and thus he escaped strangulation. Through the attention of a physician, he was cut down and restored to life, escaped to Ireland, and until he became a rebel leader, was believed to be a sincere loyalist, and a man who held republican principles in perfect detestation.

"Walter Devereux had been principally concerned in the massacre at Scullabogue, and yet he remained unnoticed till the month of November, 1798, when, being on the point of embarking on board a ship at the Cove of Cork to sail for America, he