Besides these attacks made on various places by the insurgents, and engagements betwixt them and the royal troops, commotions took place in the neighbourhood of Dunlavin. The garrison in the town consisted of a corps of yeomen cavalry, commanded by captain Ryves, and the light company of the Wicklow militia. At the head of a company of cavalry, the captain marched against the rebels, but was obliged to retreat, after some of his men had been killed by pikes. On his return, the number of prisoners under suspicion of treason being greater than that of the garrison, and apprehensions being entertained that they would co-operate with the rebels in case of an attack, it was determined by a council of officers, who ought to have been well convinced of the guilt of the sufferers before they proceeded to so severe and arbitrary a measure, that such of the yeomanry as had been imprisoned on suspicion should be put to death. In consequence of this determination, nineteen of the Saunders-grove corps and nine of the Narramore were led out and shot!

These open acts of hostility had been met by a proclamation of the lord lieutenant, on the twenty-fourth of May, giving notice that orders had been sent to all his majesty's general officers in Ireland, to punish with death, or otherwise, all persons acting or in any manner assisting in the rebellion. The proclamation had also been notified to both houses of parliament by a message from his excellency, who received their thanks and approbation of the

measure.

CHAPTER VI.

WHILE a communication was, by the means already mentioned, nearly laid open between the metropolis and the rest of the kingdom, the flames of civil war were kindled, and began to blaze in a quarter where insurrection was least expected. The county of Wexford had enjoyed a greater portion of social comfort than perhaps any other part of the province of Leinster. Gentlemen of landed property in it were less addicted to the shameful practice of absenting themselves from their estates, so prevalent in other quarters of the kingdom. Improvements were made by them, which would have been overlooked in their absence. The farmers followed the example of their landlords; and the peasants were consequently employed with regularity, which introduced amongst them habits of industry and order. Rents were comparatively low. From all these causes this county was very slowly and imperfectly organized by the United Society. Besides conducting themselves in the most peaceable manner, the Roman catholics had addressed the lord lieutenant through the medium of lord Mountnorris, professing their loyalty, and offering to arm themselves, if permitted, for the preservation of tranquility. Government was so well convinced by these circumstances of the well affected state of the county, that not above six hundred soldiers were stationed throughout the whole of it; its defence being abandoned chiefly to the yeomanry corps and their supplementaries. The members who composed these corps of

protestant yeomanry, inflamed by religious prejudice and the reports of atrocities committed by the Romanists in former times; or perhaps presumptuous from their imaginary superiority over the catholics, imprudently treated the latter with contumely and outrage. The magistrates, with equal imprudence, and that tendency to the abuse of power, so natural to weak and little minds, employed themselves in whipping and imprisoning numbers of persons whom they thought proper to suspect of disloyalty, often without sufficient grounds to authorise such proceedings. The body of six hundred regulars and militia, also ill commanded, and for the most part ill officered, contributed, by previous insult and subsequent timidity, to forward the work of rebellion. Those who insult and tyrannize over the peaceable and submissive, are for the most part the first to shrink at the appearance of danger, and to fly from the presence of such as, by their own imprudence, and by repeated injuries, they have roused to resentment and to vengeance. The system of imprisonment and of flogging, however, appears to have been principally the cause of disaffection: "I am well informed, that no floggings had place "in the town of Wexford, nor in the baronies of Forth and "Bargy; and that in those baronies no atrocities were com"mitted before or since the rebellion."* Whatever might have been the state of this county, whether it would have continued in a state of tranquility or not, had not these rigorous measures been adopted; certain it is, that after the insurrection did commence, the number of insurgents was greatly increased by the lawless conduct of straggling parties of yeomen, who too frequently shot unarmed and unoffending persons in the roads, in the fields at work, and even in their houses.

On the night of the twenty-sixth of May, the standard of rebellion was raised for the first time in this county, by father John Murphy, Romish priest of Boulavogue, commonly called Father John, a man of mean intellects, and a fanatic in religion; but at the same time eminently qualified to rouse the ignorant multitude to tumult. He kindled a fire on a hill called

*Note of the Rev. Mr. Gordon-See his History of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1798, &c. p. 103.

Corrigrua, as a signal for his associates to assemble, which was answered by another fire on an eminence contiguous to his own house at Boulavogue. This rising was communicated to the garrison at Enniscorthy by a female named Piper, the daughter of a widow whose house the insurgents had assaulted, and from which she had escaped by leaping out at a window, and flying to Enniscorthy on horseback. The house was situated at a place called Tincurry, about four miles from Enniscorthy. The insurgents wounded the widow, broke the arm of one of her daughters, who was with child, and slew her nephew, a young man named Candy.

Murphy, having burned some protestant houses, proceeded to a place called the Harrow; where he engaged and defeated a party of the Camolin yeomen infantry, commanded by lieutenant Bookey, who was slain in the commencement of the action while advancing before his men to harangue the insurgents. This beginning of hostilities, and the success by which it was attended, brought great numbers to join the rebels, so that on the succeeding morning, Whitsunday, [May 27.] two very considerable bodies had collected, one on the hill of Oulart, about eleven miles to the south of Wexford; the other on Kilthomas hill, an inferior ridge of Slyeeve Bwee mountain, about nine miles westward of Gorey. These body of insurgents were mixed multitudes of persons of both sexes and all ages. Against the rebels assembled at Oulart, commanded by father John Murphy in person, was detached, under the command of lieutenant-colonel Foote, one hundred and ten chosen men of the North Cork militia. On the advance of the king's troops, a party descended from the southern side of the hill, apparently with intention to have engaged them. These were broken and dispersed at the first onset, and fled with precipitation to the northern side of the hill, whither they were pursued with so little apprehension of resistance, that no rank or order was observed. On reaching the northern summit, they were informed that a considerable body of cavalry had that morning been ob served approaching the hill, in the direction whither they were flying, and that their intention was either to intercept them in their retreat, or to co-operate with the infantry in a joint attack. As they were yet so unskilled in military affairs as to regard an Bb

attack from cavalry the most formidable that could be made upon them, and as Father Murphy exclaimed they must either conquer or inevitably perish, they turned again upon their pursuers, who had by this time, breathless with running, nearly gained the top. Only about three hundred of the rebels, however, ventured to make this desperate attack, which was so sudden and impetuous, that the whole of the troops, except the lieutenant-colonel, a serjeant, and three privates, were killed almost in an instant, including one major, one captain, two lieutenants, and one ensign.

The body of cavalry, for fear of whom the insurgents were driven to this desperate exertion of courage, had that morning early left Gorey with intention to attack them; but after they had proceeded about thirteen miles, the number and position of the enemy was such as to induce them to retreat, which they accomplished after killing some unarmed stragglers and several old men whom they found in the houses. They were ignorant that the North Cork militia had that morning marched to attack the same body.

Against the rebels assembled at Kilthomas hill, consisting of between two and three thousand armed men, besides women, children, &c. a body about three hundred yeomen, infantry and cavalry, marched, and were more successful than their brethren at Oulart. The infantry of this little army, flanked at a considerable distance on the left by the cavalry, advanced up the hill against the rebels, who were posted on the summit, with the utmost intrepidity; and the insurgents were so panic-struck by a few discharges of musketry, that they fled, and were pursued with the loss of about a hundred and fifty men. The victors also, in the course of seven miles march, burned two catholic chapels, and about a hundred cabins and farm-houses.

Meantime the victorious body of Oulart, under father Murphy, elated with their success, marched and took possession of Camolin, a town six miles westward of Gorey, whither its loyal inhabitants had fled for refuge. The whole country presented the most rueful aspect of civil warfare-houses in flames, part fired by the rebels, and part by the military; while the frighted inhabitants were flying in all quarters; the protestants to the towns, the Romanists to the hills, or to join the rebel parties