Four Green Fields: Trollheart's History of Ireland

[Trollheart]

Fail of the Century - The Great Famine (1315 - 1317)

It really must have sucked living in the first half of the fourteenth century in Europe. Not just because of the conditions, the poverty and the really poor wifi signal, but from halfway through the second decade up to more than halfway through the century famine and plague ravaged the land. As already related, the horror of the Black Death swept through Europe like, well, a plague from about 1347 to nearly 1352, wiping out over 200 million people, and this on the back of an already weakened Europe which had succumbed to a series of famines that raged from 1315 onwards. It’s amazing anyone survived.

Not that famines were new or unknown. France suffered from three separate ones before “the big one”, and a staggering six after it, some of them occurring during, and after, the time of the Black Death, while in England - yes, famine in England! - there were three. Life expectancy in Europe had dropped by 1345 to a mere seventeen years (though admittedly that was at the height of the Plague) from a relative high in 1276 of thirty-five. A spate of unseasonably cold and wet weather, coupled with poor harvests and climbing food prices, to say nothing of an explosion in population and the poor being confined to working on land that was hardly arable, all the best land kept for the nobility, pushed Europe along a steadily-descending spiral into almost constant and perpetual hunger. Nobody had enough to eat, and those who did did not care about those who had nothing. No social welfare, no land reclamation projects, no mechanical assistance to farming, and no mercy from the vagaries of fate.

It all led, in 1315, to what became known as The Great Famine (not to be confused with the infamous Irish Great Famine, which was confined mostly to Ireland and was five hundred years later), which was to last for two years and cover all of Europe. Heavy rain in the spring and summer of that year led to bad or in some cases no harvests, no fodder for livestock, and, market forces doing what market forces do, the scarcity of food pushed the price of any that was available beyond the reach of the ordinary worker. In fact, in France, the price of a simple loaf rose so steeply (increasing by, wait for it, three hundred and twenty percent!) that bread could not be purchased, in a stark future echo of events that would lead to revolution there four hundred and fifty years later. England didn’t fare any better, with reports from Bristol in 1315 speaking with horror of people being so hungry they ate their children, and new arrivals in the local gaol being fallen upon and devoured by the starving prisoners already there. Don’t believe me? Don’t blame you. But here.

(From the Bristol Annal: Bristol Archives)
there was: 'a great Famine of Dearth with such mortality that the living coud scarce suffice to Bury the dead, horse flesh and Dogs flesh was accounted good meat, and some eat their own Children. The Thieves that were in Prison did pluck and tear in pieces, such as were newly put into Prison and devoured them half alive.

See? Even Edward II found it hard to find bread, and you know there’s a problem when the royal bakery is empty! The year dragged wearily by, but its successor brought no relief, as the rain continued to fall, harvests continued to fail, and some families, unable to sustain their own children, turned them loose to fend for themselves. The horrid word was whispered throughout the continent, though who can say if cannibalism was actually practiced? Then again, who can say it wasn’t? If you’re hungry and desperate enough…

And on it persisted, with 1317 as wet as the two previous years, though finally in the summer the rain stopped, but by then most of the damage had been done. It would take another eight years before things would begin to stabilise, and another ten after that the rats would arrive. Ironically, in some ways the famine could be seen as a necessary tool that reduced the overpopulation of Europe and allowed the meagre food supply eventually to stretch further, having to feed fewer people. An anonymous poem penned in 1321 probably said it best:

When God saw that the world was so over proud,
He sent a dearth on earth, and made it full hard.
A bushel of wheat was at four shillings or more,
Of which men might have had a quarter before…
And then they turned pale who had laughed so loud,
And they became all docile who before were so proud.
A man’s heart might bleed for to hear the cry
Of poor men who called out, “Alas! For hunger I die …!”

Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II, Anon.

The Great Famine and, later, the Black Death, served to weaken the power of the Catholic Church for, although in the latter (and presumably the former too) the plagues were blamed on man’s sins and pride, the Church was unable to deliver its flock from the wrath of God, and so became something of a clay idol; people had before placed all their trust in the priests, the Pope and his ministers, expecting to be saved if they only repented. But in the face of famine and the Black Death the Church was as powerless as the lowest commoner, and Popes died as easily as paupers, and people began to see the Church was not, after all, the all-powerful, indefatigable entity it claimed to be.

The arrival of the Great Famine began to turn the tide against Edward, as his troops began to succumb to the disease and food ran out, and his own general impatience for battle would lead to his and his brother’s defeat and death in the Battle of Faughart. Sadly there is no real account of what should have been one of the most important battles of Bruce’s career and of the Scottish Wars of Independence, but it seems that Edward took on a much larger force than he could cope with - reckoned around 20,000 - without waiting for reinforcements to arrive from Scotland, and perhaps like the Grand Old Duke of York in the song, he marched them up to the top of the hill at Faughart but did not get a chance to march them down again, as he was slain with most of his men by the English. In possibly an ironic twist, the battle took place close to the town which had been the site of one of the greatest massacres by the Scots, Dundalk.

Despite the defeat of his armies and the death of his brother, Robert the Bruce did manage one victory - two if you include outliving not only Edward I but his son too - in having the Pope formally recognise the independence of Scotland (even if England did no such thing) in 1324 and affirming Robert as King of Scots. Edward II died in 1327 and was replaced by his son Edward III. Robert continued invading and harrying England, and in 1328 the two kings met for the battle which would decide the first War of Scottish Independence.

The Battle of Stanhope Park

The power behind the throne: waiting in the shadows

Edward II’s marriage was not good. His wife, Isabella, known as the She-Wolf of France, had had enough of the king and taken a lover, the exiled Roger Mortimer, who had risen against him. While on a diplomatic mission to her native France it is believed Isabella hooked up with Mortimer and the two began to plot the downfall of her husband. Returning to England with a small army, and threatening to disinherit his son Edward III, then only thirteen, Isabella and Mortimer forced Edward II to abdicate, later, according to some accounts, having him murdered, and then taking the crown for themselves, nominally naming the young prince as the new king.

In June 1327 a large Scottish force led by Thomas Earl of Moray, Black Douglas and the Earl of Mar raided across the border into England, and Mortimer along with the young prince raised a large army to meet them. Typical disagreements arose within the English ranks, especially with some mercenaries from the country of Hainault (modern France/Belgium border) which depleted the English ranks as they fought among each other. Having sorted out their differences, Mortimer moved to intercept the Scots.

Except, he didn’t.

The Scottish army would not be pinned down; like ravaging ghosts they plundered and burned and pillaged the countryside, their passage marked by towering plumes of smoke that rose into the summer sky, but they never engaged the English force and wherever Mortimer went, there the Scots were not. As a result of this somewhat retreading of William Wallace’s original guerilla war supplies began to run low in the English camp and the mood soured. Finally an English scout was captured by the Scots, and sent back with a message to Mortimer that they were ready to do battle. After all the uncrowned king of England had done to try to take his enemy by surprise and catch them at a disadvantage, it was now the Scots who were dictating the terms of the battle, and they met him as directed on the banks of the Wear river, near Stanhope Park.

Apparently all of what follows is true!

The Scots had occupied the high ground, and therefore had the advantage over their enemy. The English sent longbowmen up the river to try to ford it and attack Bruce’s men but they were scattered by cavalry. The English next asked the Scots if they didn’t agree that it really wasn’t cricket, you know, their having the advantage of the higher ground, and wouldn’t they be terrific chaps and just come on down onto the plains where everyone would be equal, and the armies could battle it out, man to man? Unsurprisingly, the Scots yelled back “Nae thanks son, we’re braw here lad!” And stayed where they were.

Unbelievable.

I can imagine the Tommie at the Somme shouting over to the Germans in their machine-gun nests: “Now look chaps, this really isn’t fair is it? Why not climb out of those trenches and we’ll duke it out here in No-Man’s Land to see who deserves to be the masters of Europe?” Or Osama being told he was being a really bad sport, hiding up there in the mountains where the Americans couldn’t catch him, and would he not just do the decent thing and come out and take what was coming to him like a man? Oh, the hilarity of these chivalrous English!

Anyway, unprepared to maintain the traditional stiff upper lip and charge into a hopeless cause in a blaze of very brief glory, the English remained where they were, the Scots remained where they were, and nobody attacked anyone for three days. Bor-ing! I thought they told me when I joined up that it would be non-stop fighting, burning, attacking, cheering, with maybe the odd spot of raping thrown in! Anyone want a game of cards? What do you mean, you didn’t bring cards? Now I’m really depressed! When are we going to see some action?

Well, kind of never, lad. The king did get something of a surprise - nearly died of terror really (well he was only a teenager, and barely that) when the Scots slipped down in the night and - wait for it! - cut the guy ropes of his tent, collapsing it, then sodded off back up the mountain! While the English then slept in full body armour, expecting an attack, the Scots buggered off back across the border, negotiating bogs the English had thought impassable, and when they woke up in the morning the English army was alone. D’oh! The discomfort of tossing and turning in armour all night, for nothing! I need to scratch so bad!

The strangest battle I ever read of, I must say. You can’t say not a shot was fired or that nobody died (consider the luckless archers of Edward III) but in general there was a three-day do-nothing, where the Scots grinned down at the English and the English glared up at the Scots, and then the Scots went home. And yet, this battle - or, to be fair, the combined effect of the Bruce rampaging throughout northern England - was the final nail in the coffin of Edward’s resistance to the idea of Scottish independence. All but bankrupted by the war and the constant invasions, hardly able to pay even the mercenaries mentioned above, and humiliated and smarting from his treatment, he, or rather, Mortimer and Isabella, had no option but to accept King Robert’s terms and the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton was ratified in 1328, making Scotland an independent and sovereign kingdom and Robert its rightful king. This drew to a close 32 years of fighting, invasion, counter-invasion and pillage which constituted the First Scottish War of Independence, and a year later King Robert died, leaving Scotland in the hands of his young son, David.

But Edward had never agreed with the terms of the treaty (he had been excluded from the negotiations and from the signing by Mortimer and Isabella) and by the time he had grown to his majority and properly established his royal power he had Mortimer arrested, imprisoned in the Tower of London and later executed without trial, being hanged at Tyburn.

Two years later, the Second War of Scottish Independence began. This would last another quarter of a century.

[Trollheart]

The Second War of Scottish Independence (1332 - 1357)

Old Grievances: Bailol II

Originally chosen by Edward I as King of the Scots, John Bailiol had been forced to abdicate and now his son wanted revenge. He pressed Edward III, newly established as the actual power in England following the arrest of Mortimer, to restore to him his ancestral lands. Edward duly sent a request to the new king of Scotland, David II, the late Robert the Bruce’s son, but no reply came, so Edward said to Edward (yeah they were both Edwards - bloody English. And Scots!) “get in there and fill yer boots, son,” and Bailiol was not slow to accept the offer, marching into Scotland in 1332 where he met the forces of Donald, Earl of Mar. Well, when I say met…

See, our man Edward Balioil had gone to Scotland with a pretty piddling small army - about 1,500 - in the mistaken belief that he would be hailed as a saviour by the Scots and they would all flock to his banner. This failed to happen, and he even miscalculated by somehow offering Mar the chance to join him. The Earl, with about ten times as many men as the would-be usurper (or perhaps that should be re-usurper, since his dad was king originally?) descended on them as they tried to get off their boats, fighting them, as a famous statesman would note six hundred years later, on the beaches. Nevertheless, despite the negligent size of their force, Bailiol fought Mar off, and the Scots legged it to Perth. Perth in Scotland that is, not Perth in Australia.

Also with Bailiol was the heir of the deposed Earl of Buchan, Henry Beaumont. Having helped themselves to weapons from a burgled Scottish armoury, they too proceeded to Perth where they faced off against the much larger Scottish force. Bad enough that it was - by some estimates - more than thirty times their size (though more likely ten, still a huge disparity), but that was only Mar’s lot. The lads commanded by the Earl of March (note that “ch” - not the same guy!) were already on their way, no doubt had they mobile phones they would have been texting Mar to “save sum 4 us!” So Bailiol and Beaumont knew they were in a pretty hopeless cause. The hoped-for Scottish support had not materialised, and here they were, standing against an army far larger than they had expected.

The Scots were so confident that they began to dance and get drunk, even before battle had been joined, but the English snuck into their camp that night and did for them. Sadly for Bailiol and his men, it was just a minor camp they had attacked, and when they saw in the morning that the main force of Mar’s army was still ready to engage them, they were, not to put too fine a point on it, more than a little upset. However it was, as it seems to have been down through history more often than not, disagreements among their commanders which undone the Scots.

Robert Bruce - another one; this one a bastard son of the dead king - saw the English crossing the river and immediately accused Mar of being in league with them. He had no doubt been aware of the overtures Bailiol had made to the earl with a view to joining him, and although Mar had declined the English commander’s kind invitation, Bruce was up in arms about it. Mar, for his part, told Bruce that far from being a traitor, he would prove how loyal he was by being the first to strike a blow against the enemy. Two can play at that game, thought Bruce, and, not to be outdone, charged his own schilltron at the English.

It was something of a mistake.

You see, what somebody should have told the young bastard is that if you ride too fast for everyone else to keep up with you, well, everyone can’t keep up with you. Consequently, his rather rash charge led to him leaving a lot of his men behind in the Scottish dust, which levelled the playing field a little between him and the English. However the Scots seem to have scorned wearing helmets, or at least visors, which was not a good idea when you’re facing a bunch of archers! Exposing their flank to the English as they charged, Bruce’s men, blinded by the arrows, began to veer closer together. Mar, of course, was not so hasty.

Um.

Well actually he did the same thing, coming up behind Bruce’s men and actually crashing into them in his haste. The English must have been rolling on the floor laughing, seven hundred years before the internet. The Scots, who had vastly outnumbered them at the outset, were doing their work for them! This extract from Wiki explains it all: The struggle continued from a little past dawn until after noon. In the centre of the Scottish mass the result was literally suffocating; men were pressed too tightly together to be able to breathe and any who lost their footing were trampled to death. Contemporary accounts speak of more than a thousand Scots being smothered without coming into contact with the English. One claimed that “more were slain by the Scots themselves than by the English. For … every one fallen there fell a second, and then a third fell, and those who were behind pressing forward and hastening to the fight, the whole army became a heap of the slain.”

But an Englishman does not stand idly by and watch the enemy destroy himself, so in they waded, adding to the confusion, and it’s said they had to climb over heaps of dead Scots to get at the living ones. By evening it was all over. Bruce and Mar had both fallen, and the hugely superior army had been routed and had fled, leaving Bailiol and Beaumont to take Perth and fortify it as their base. Never in the field of human conflict had so few triumphed over so many with such hilarious results, maybe.

Despite having far fewer men, the English are reported to have lost less than a hundred while the number of deaths on the Scottish side vary in different accounts from two or three thousand to fifteen, though it can probably be accepted that that last one is an exaggeration. Nonetheless, the only surviving high-ranking Scot was the Earl of Fife, who was captured and changed his tune (sorry), going over to the English side. Guess he realised which side his haggis was buttered on. Sorry again.

Late for battle, the Earl of March turned up a week later, but by then the city of Perth was under Bailiol’s control and impregnable. Edward Bailiol was crowned King of Scotland on September 24 1332, but he would not have time to get comfortable on the throne, deposed by David II six months later. For the next four years he could arguably be called the yo-yo king, as he was on and off the throne more times than a man with chronic diarrhea. Edward III would finally take a personal hand in trying to subdue Scotland, and the second war for the country’s freedom would go on for another twenty-five years.

To some degree, what Bailiol had hoped for did come to pass, though kind of in retrospect, as with the defeat and death of Bruce and the Earl of Mar, many Scottish nobles did in fact swear their loyalty to him, as the new crowned king. Among these were Archibold Douglas, half-brother to the famous Black Douglas who had kept the high ground at Stanhope Park against Mortimer, and who was now Guardian of Scotland. Feeling he could let his guard down, now that this powerful former enemy was on his side, and perhaps rather foolishly, the new king dismissed most of his men, sent letters to Edward III proclaiming his subservience to him and Scotland’s to England (makes you wonder why they wanted an independent country in the first place if all they were going to do was stick their tongues down the back of Edward’s breeches, but however), promising to support him in his future wars.

Soon after, Douglas attacked. In concert with the Earl of Moray, Simon Fraser and, um, Robert II - who was King David’s nephew and next in line to the throne they took him so completely by surprise that the greater part of his men were wiped out and, in another slice of what I’m going to be calling hilarious history, Edward had to escape through a hole in the wall and ride to Carlisle buck naked! His brother Henry was killed, and so ended the Bailiol line of succession in Scotland, not that that would stop Edward making frequent visits to try on the crown a few times more.

Invasion! V - The Return of the return of the kings: Edward, Edward and the Siege of Berwick

Long seen as the gateway to and from Scotland, Berwick had undergone major fortifications since it had been sacked in 1296, and was now in good shape to withstand a long siege, which was just as well, as that’s exactly what happened. Crossing over the border with Bailiol and other disgruntled Scottish nobles, Edward marched to cut Berwick off by land, as his navy had already done by sea. With him he brought people to build siege engines, and operated a scorched-earth policy to ensure that even if the siege were broken temporarily, no food would be available to the defenders. In his army was a man who had defended Berwick against the English, been captured and agreed to work for them; his knowledge of the castle and the town proved invaluable.

Catapults and trebuchets were used to great effect, and historians believe that Berwick had the dubious honour of being the first British town to be shelled by cannon fire. Hilarious history rears its humorous head again, as we learn that the defenders, hoping to burn the ships in the harbour blockading them, set alight driftwood soaked in tar, but instead managed to burn down most of the town! Oops!

The siege began at the start of May, by June the defenders had requested a temporary truce which, under perhaps the odd rules of chivalry, was granted, on the condition that Berwick had one month in which to be relieved, and if not they agreed to surrender. I suppose everyone needed a well-earned break. Meanwhile Douglas tried diversionary tactics, striking into England and taking the town of Tweedmouth, declaring to Edward III that if he did not withdraw his forces from Berwick he, Douglas, would devastate England. “Oh yeah?” the king probably didn’t reply, though he literally could have, “You and what army?” To which of course Douglas would have said “This one!”

But enough humour; war is a serious thing, and this siege was about to get even more serious.

In order to ensure the compliance of the Scots in the truce Edward had taken twelve hostages, including Thomas Seton, son of Sir Alexander, Governor of Berwick. When the Scots claimed they did not have to surrender, even though the named date had now passed, as Douglas was relieving them (though not exactly charging at Edward’s forces, it must be said) the king snapped back that no, that wasn’t how it was at all. Relief had to come from Scotland, from that side of the border, and Douglas had marched from England, so no deal. To reinforce his point, he had a gallows set up outside the gates of the town and hanged Thomas, promising that he would hang two more hostages every day until Berwick surrendered.

New and more specific terms for a potential surrender - with attendant promises of safe conduct for the defenders - were hammered out between the two parties, the defence of the town and the governorship having now passed to Sir William Keith. This time, however, only a four-day window was allowed.

I find it odd, I must say, when I read that the Scottish army under Douglas outnumbered the English by two-to-one that he didn’t attack them directly. Instead, he marched to Bamburgh, where the queen was staying, and laid siege to it, hoping to goad Edward into abandoning his position to save his damsel in distress. Not going to happen though. “She’s a big girl, and can take care of herself,” thought the king, and stayed where he was. Unable to take the town by force, Douglas realised he could no longer avoid battle (why was he trying to?) and headed off to meet Edward’s forces.

[Trollheart]

The Battle of Halidon Hill

One thing Scots did not apparently like was not being able to choose the battleground; it seems in most of the battles in which they were defeated the enemy had either forced or tricked them there, or had the advantage when they arrived. There was also the time issue. Whereas before, if conditions were not favourable the Scottish could often postpone or delay battle (witness the shouting and drinking at Stanhope Park) but here there was the town of Berwick to consider. Keith’s new treaty with the king specified that the town would be surrendered if relief did not arrive by July 19, and this was… July 19. So basically D-Day. No delaying, no talking or negotiating, no trickery or retreating or regrouping. It was put up or shut up.

Coming down one slope, across marshy ground and then climbing up Halidon Hill, Douglas’s forces were again beset by those pesky arrows, and blindness and panic was the order of the day. Apparently they had still to learn about helmets or visors. All that awaited those who did not fall down or off the mountain was a cohort of spear wielders, and the Scots were broken and defeated quickly, Douglas falling on the field. All survivors were executed on the orders of Edward III, including those taken prisoner. The king was no longer a boy, and he wasn’t fucking around with these rebels!

Believing his work done here, Edward headed back to London while Bailiol was crowned for the second time, though that wouldn’t last long. Granting back all the lands Bruce had taken from the disinherited lords, he opened new wounds and ensured that conflict against his rule would rage across Scotland for years.

With friends like these… Wolves in the throne room: Edward Bailiol is deposed for the second time

It would seem that, in common with much of humanity, when there was no common enemy to fight the Scots fell to bickering and quarrelling among themselves, and it wasn’t long before the new/restored King Edward was facing opposing factions within his own power structure. Much of this centred on three nobles, former allies of his - Richard Talbot, husband to one of the deposed Comyns, Henry de Beaumont, heir to the territory of Buchan, and the unfortunately-named David III Strathbogie, another of the Comyn line. Sounds like a supersonic jet fighter with a bad cold. Anyhow, these three took exception to a decision their king made vis a vis some land that rightfully belonged to the nieces of Alexander de Mowbray, and they decided to do something about it.

That something was rarely try to talk to the king or send a strongly-worded letter, of course, and so these three went over to the side of David II. It didn’t do them much good, as Bailiol defeated them, but aware that his fragile and tenuous grip on the throne of Scotland was slipping he called for help from his patron, and Edward III duly answered the call, though neither could have been prepared for what happened next.

Just what we need: more Frenchmen! Philip steps in

King of France, Philip VI had given shelter to the deposed King David II, and was prepared to honour the terms laid down by Philip IV when the Scots signed a treaty with him against Edward I. He sent his ambassador, the Bishop of Avalanches, sorry Avranche, to demand an explanation from Edward as to why he was harassing the poor Scots. Edward invited the bishop to go talk to them, and see what a surly lot they were, impossible to negotiate with, and perhaps sample some of that foul-tasting haggis they were all so fond of, and see if he personally did not want to invade and conquer them. The bishop demurred on that point, but did go to talk to Edward Bailiol, encountering the usual factions and jockeying for position and intrigue and backstabbing and disloyalty that must have made him feel right at home, pining for the court of France, or even for the Holy City.

Meanwhile, Edward massed his armies, waiting for the truce the bishop finally worked out to run out, and for him to bugger off back to France, which he did, in July 1335. The Scots, knowing King Edward (the English one) well, had been expecting his attack and mustered their own forces, ready to meet him.

Invasion! VI - The return, this time, of just the one king: Edward strikes back

With his largest army yet assembled - about 13,000 men - and with the help of King Edward Bailiol, the English king had little trouble defeating the Scots and took Perth, where he settled for a time. Back in France, King Philip VI was unimpressed with the news brought back to him by his bishop (it seemed failure was an option) and gathered his own fleet to sail to bonny Scotland and help out the braw wee lads his pre-pre-pre-something-decessor had sworn to in the Treaty of Paris. Before sending the men on their way (about 6,000) he gave Edward III one last chance: if he would allow France and the Pope to arbitrate the independence of Scotland, he would keep his men at home. Edward told him to stick it, do his worst, come at me bro, and Philip came at him.

The Bogie man cometh - the Battle of Culblean

Back in Scotland, with the departure of King Edward, Bailiol’s men set about settling some scores, with David Strathbogie attempting to wipe out all the freeholders who had been awarded land in the time of William Wallace, and who formed the nucleus of the supporters of David II, Robert the Bruce’s son and Bailiol’s rival claimant for the throne. He went a little far though when he attacked the castle of the wife of the Guardian of Scotland, Andrew Murray, who rushed to its defence. Although Murray had about a third as many men as Strathbogie, he also had superior knowledge of the terrain and, one would assume, the safety of his lady in question (although accounts seem to note he was more interested in preserving the castle for its strategic importance: charming!), he prevailed and Strathbogie was defeated, killed in battle, as was one of the few remaining Comyns.

Edward, meanwhile, receiving intelligence of the progress of King Philip VI, and fearing that his old enemy would attempt to make Scotland a base from which he could launch an attack on England, set off to secure the town of Aberdeen, the most likely place where the French might land. In terms of invasion forces, this one was much smaller than those Edward had previously mounted, a mere 800 men, but with most of the resistance to his rule eliminated and Edward Bailiol still on the throne, if barely hanging on there, there wasn’t too much in the way of organised opposition for the English king to worry about, and he burned Aberdeen to the ground. It was a wasted effort. Philip’s privateers had already attacked the town of Orford, on the Suffolk Coast, in the south of England, and when he received news of the attack Edward quickly made his way there, abandoning Scotland for now.

Too late to do anything though by the time he got the word, Edward headed back over the border and wintered at Clyde, carrying on his campaign against the Scots there, determined that Philip should have no base in Scotland. He was, in fact, laying plans to invade France in the spring. Back to England he went to lay his plans, while the Scots wreaked more mischief in his absence, putting Edward Bailiol on an even shakier footing than he had occupied before; with no English king to come to his rescue, and his allies rapidly deserting his cause in their droves, to say nothing of the French taking an interest (surely with a view to restoring David to the throne) it couldn’t be long before he was on his way out again.

As is almost always the case in such wars, the ordinary citizen suffered the most, and indeed, at the hands of his own people, as Andrew Murray, in an attempt to smash Bailiol’s power forever, laid waste to all around him, seemingly without a care as to what people were to do to feed themselves, find shelter or live. However in 1338 the people were granted some respite when Murray died, though William Douglas continued the fight.

[Trollheart]

Goliath vs David: The return of yet another king

Aided by the French king, David II returned to Scotland in 1341, having reached the majority age of eighteen, and everything was roses as all the Scots accepted him. Well, not quite. Not even close actually. Almost on his arrival he ran into opposition, and even those who were ready to support him turned out to be just as ready to oppose him if they didn’t get what they wanted. Eager to impose his authority, the young king made a few decisions that didn’t go down too well, and would help Edward III by causing trouble for David without his having to take a hand in things. He had in fact been busy fighting Philip’s forces, and had won a major victory, so major in fact that the French king feared an English invasion, and asked David to instead invade England, to draw Edward’s attention and forces away from him. David duly obliged.

Invasion! VII - Done up like a kipper

Despite all the infighting and doubt within his people, the Scottish king was able to gather together a pretty massive force of 12,000 men and headed south. Delays in preparation though allowed the English time to muster and they were ready for him when he attacked. They met in what would be David’s first battle with the English king, and also turned out to be his first defeat.

The Battle of Neville’s Cross

With the bulk of Edward’s forces fighting in Normandy, Philip VI advised David that he would have an easy time of it, catching the English both unawares and under-manned, calling England at the time a “defencess void”. This would, however, not turn out to be the case. The main problem here was that the English were expecting this; the Scots themselves had said they would break the truce (which none of the three nations honoured in any way and was more or less just words on a page if anything) as soon as France told them to, so it was a matter of when rather than if. Relying on the (faulty) intelligence from the French court, David marched south and was more than surprised when William Douglas almost literally stumbled over the army assembled by the Archbishop of York, in the process losing more than half his men. Reporting to David at the monastery they were in the process of sacking, Douglas gave him the news and David rode to meet the English.

The Archbishop’s force had been swelled by a further 3,000 men from Yorkshire, now numbering about 7,000 in all, and Lord Ralph Neville took command of the whole army. David took the higher ground, as the kings and leaders before him had always done, and relied on his schilltrons, with axemen and even cavalry officers in front of them. His cause was not helped by the sudden and cowardly desertion of two of his commanders, Robert Stewart, the illegitimate son of the Bruce, and the Earl of March, Patrick Dunbar, leaving David’s flank very much exposed and no doubt plunging Scottish morale into the depths of despair.

Perhaps because of terrain not being in their favour, perhaps because the battle had been thrust upon them rather than their being able to prepare for it, or perhaps even due to David’s being, after all, a young man, untested in battle-hardened conditions - and certainly no thanks to the desertion of the two commanders - despite their (originally) superior numbers the Scots were routed, and David himself badly wounded and captured by the English.

Most of the Scottish military hierarchy and nobles were either killed or captured, and the Battle of Neville’s Cross was a serious blot on the new king’s copybook; his first chance to show his people what he could do, and it resulted in what can only be termed a massacre, decimating the Scottish nobility and leading to the imprisonment of their king.

Fail.

Epic fail.

Some noteworthy points before we go on. How true some of this is I don’t know, but accounts say that King David hid after the battle, taking refuge under a bridge, and was only discovered when his reflection was seen in the water flowing under the bridge. He subsequently did at least have enough fight in him to knock the teeth out of one of his captors. During the battle he took arrows in the face, and though removed, parts of them remained and gave him headaches for the rest of his life, as well as, presumably, being a constant reminder of his abject failure as a leader.

Although nobles were traditionally ransomed, Edward wanted to break the Scottish monarchy and so refused to allow many of the more high-profile prisoners be ransomed, keeping them captive instead. Much of this did not go down well with his own people, for if there is one thing that trumps loyalty to the king it is loyalty to the pocket, and take money out of that pocket and you may very well be storing up trouble for yourself. Many lower-value prisoners were executed out of hand, but Edward had a special hatred for the Earl of Menteith, John Graham, who had previously sworn fealty to the English king. Seeing this as treason, Edward had Menteith tried and condemned as a traitor, then drawn, hanged, beheaded and quartered.

The Holy Rood of St. Margaret, originally taken by Edward I and brought to England, later restored to Scotland, was again taken from David and given to Durham Cathedral.

War is over, if you want it - The end of the Second War of Scottish Independence

With the imprisonment of David went the last real hope of Scotland’s achieving independence from England. Edward Bailiol popped up again like a bad penny, but Edward III didn’t really have much time for him, trying instead to convince the captive David to nominate one of his own sons as his heir, which would have solidified England’s hold over Scotland. David himself, at a mere eighteen years old, had no children, but refused constantly to allow this. He must have wished he had stayed in France! Mind you, the French were not doing so well either, as Edward beat them back on their native soil. That’s not really relevant though to the history here, so we won’t be going into that (don’t want to stray too far off the beaten track, and we’ve wandered a long way already).

Perhaps oddly, considering they ran from battle (though probably few survived to tell the tale, and those who did, with their king defeated and a prisoner of the English, probably knew to keep their mouths shut) the Scottish then rallied behind Robert Stewart and Patrick Dunbar, while Edward tried unsuccessfully to get David to see sense and give him Scotland. Not sure why he thought the king would do this, given how hard he and his predecessors had fought to keep their country free of English influence, but he seems to have made a good fist of it, even adding a ransom demand into the bargain, all of which were turned down. David was even allowed leave England to supposedly ratify a treaty whereby Scotland would become a fief, or dependent kingdom, of England, but the parliament decided against it, literally ruling that the freedom of their king was less important than the freedom of the nation, and sent him back with a thanks but no thanks message.

Invasion! VIII - The Final Countdown

While Edward was again away dealing with those pesky French, Stewart and Dunbar, with French support and encouragement, launched another invasion of England, which was again poorly-defended, most of its army having joined their king in the battle against France. They took the town of Berwick, and when Edward heard what had happened he returned to England as soon as he could, invaded Scotland again, retook the castle and kicked the Scots out. He then went on something of a rampage, destroying Edinburgh and burning most of Lothian. But in the end he realised he wasn’t really going to subdue Scotland, and would have to settle for a treaty instead.

The end of the second war of Scottish independence reads to me not so much of triumph but of exhausted acceptance, on both sides. For over seventy years, the two nations had fought, made war, invaded each other, and now, finally, at the end, with victory against the French seeming more in his grasp than ever and Scotland divided with the capture of their king, Edward realised it was time to draw a line under this long conflict. In a treaty which probably satisfied nobody, but did the job, and bringing it all back to where it both started and eventually ended, the Treaty of Berwick was signed in 1357. David was released to go home to Scotland, Edward had now only to fight a war on one front, and Edward Bailiol, the eternal fly in the ointment of the Scottish monarchy, was old and ill, and would die ten years later, childless and mostly forgotten.

[Trollheart]

So why did we get so distracted with the history of Scotland, you ask? You may remember (or you may not; it’s been some time now as I went through this) that I was trying to show how the Scottish had as much reason to hate the English as we do. They too fought for their independence, but were thwarted by their southern neighbours at every turn. They were occupied, oppressed, in some cases almost ethnically cleansed by successive English kings, but I suppose at least they weren’t persecuted along religious lines in the way we were. Nevertheless, it’s clear now, or it should be, why, given a choice between supporting the people who shared the landmass they were on or those of an entirely separate island to the west, Scotland would always consider Ireland to be allies, comrades in arms, fellows in suffering under the English tyrannical boot.

Which brings us back to here.

Skeletons in the Field: Ireland’s Forgotten Famine 1740 - 1741

When we think of famine in Ireland, when we recall the hardships that forced hundreds of thousands of our forebears to abandon our native country and seek sanctuary in America, when we talk of coffin ships and bodies piling up in the streets and the inhumanity of the English landowners, we do something of a disservice to those who died in the previous famine, which took place almost a century the Great Famine, but was, in many ways, worse.

While there had been, as already related, widespread famine across Europe in the earlier centuries, no single country was hit as hard in the eighteenth century than Ireland. This was due to many factors, some of them to do with nature, but more to do with humanity, or rather, the lack of it. The baser parts of humanity - greed, lack of compassion, inequality, brutality, thoughtlessness and prejudice - all helped contribute to one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in Irish history, though sadly not the last. By the time it was finished, it would have wiped out almost twenty percent of the population of Ireland, almost half a million people, making it even more devastating, in ratio, to the Great Famine of 1845-1852.

The principle cause of the famine was the weather, and a reliance by the Irish upon crops that formed the basis of their diet. Grain and potatoes were the staple of Irish families, sometimes (though not by any means always) supplemented by fish or duck, but usually only in coastal areas where such game could be found. After relatively mild winters over the previous decade something called The Great Frost hit Europe. Nobody knows what caused it exactly, though links have been suggested with volcanic activity. Wherever it came from, it froze the land, freezing over rivers like the Shannon, Liffey and Boyne, and even inside it was freezing, indoor temperatures (though few records survive from the time) stated to be -12 Celsius (10 Fahrenheit) while the single outdoor reading spoke of “thirty-two degrees of frost.” All across Europe lakes, waterfalls, rivers froze, fish died and howling winter winds battered the continent.

People tried to keep warm but it wasn’t easy. There were no coal deliveries for months due to both the coal factories in Cumbria and South Wales freezing, and the quays to which they would have been taken also in the grip of the relentless ice, and when deliveries did resume, perhaps not surprisingly, coal prices had skyrocketed. People desperately salvaged any wood they could find to burn, stripping hedges, ornamental trees and nurseries. Not only that, but had there been any wheat it could not have been milled into bread to feed the hungry populace, as the mill wheels had frozen in place.

To be fair to them and give credit where it’s due, the Protestant landowners did not stand idly by, providing coal and meal to the poor, and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Devonshire, issued an order prohibiting the export of grain outside of Ireland, other than to England. To be cynical about it, these measures were likely not taken out of the goodness of the gentry’s hearts; they needed these people to work in their factories, mills and fields, and probably feared that too many deaths would impact upon their business, and therefore their pocket. Still, they did a hell of a lot more than their successors would a century later.

Things went from bad to worse as the potato crop failed, all potatoes destroyed by the frost, and this was followed in the spring by a drought, as the expected rain did not make an appearance, and in addition corn and wheat crops failed, leading to the elimination of virtually the entire food supply in Ireland. The harsh drought, coupled with the ferocious winter winds, which continued into the spring, also killed off much cattle, sheep and other animals, and rural dwellers had no recourse but to descend on the cities, begging on the streets and leading, eventually and rather inevitably, to conflict.

The trouble was that, for some reason, the country folk had not considered that their urban counterparts might be just as hungry and helpless as they were. Hungry they were, helpless, not quite. In mid-April a band descended on the docks at Drogheda and damaged a ship loaded with oatmeal which was bound for Scotland. Exports were quickly stopped after that. What didn’t stop was the unrest, anger and indignation at the authorities, with stories going around of food being hoarded, provided to the more well-off. Food riots broke out, first in Dublin and then all over the country. Many people were shot in an attempt to control these outbreaks.

Some respite seemed finally at hand in Autumn, as the cold decreased and cattle began to recover, but they were weak and few gave milk or birth, then in October a huge blizzard hit the country, and the expected rains finally arrived - no longer welcome - leading to large-scale flooding. These were backed up by freezing temperatures which turned the rain to ice and clogged up the rivers, proving a hazard to shipping. With the weather so unpredictable and harsh, those who had food to sell knocked its price way up, or hoarded what they had for fear they might not be able to get any more. Food riots again exploded. The country was on the edge of famine.

From the Caledonian Mercury, 1740

Dublin, Jan. 11. The Frost still continues here very severe. Numbers are in Want, the Hardness of the Season not permitting them to work ; and Letters from all Parts of the Country give most melancholy Accounts of its Effects, the Mills being stopt they cannot get their Corn grinded, and the Poor whose chief Support is Potatoes are in extreme Want, they being mostly spoiled in the Ground. All the Rivers in and about Cork in Ireland are so frozen up, that People frequently walk 3 Miles upon the Ice. There are Tables and Forms on the Liffey, at Dublin., for selling Liquors . It was also intended to roaft an Ox upon it: And the Thermometer was many Degrees of Cold more than ever known.

Poet William Dunkin put it in more flowery, but no less deadly language in 1742, in his poem The Frosty Winter of Ireland, in the Year 1739–1740
:
…Beneath the glassy gulph
Fishes benumb’d, and lazy sea-calves freeze
In crystal coalition with the deep.
…The long resounding waves
Of naval ocean, whitening into foam
Boil from the nether bottom, and uprol
Successive, fluid mountains to the stars.
Not sandy shores at other times expos’d
More shatter’d prows, or billow-broken keels:
But if the waves had haply roll’d to land
Some, warm with vital motion, and a-broach
With oozy brine, they stiffen at the breath
Of Boreas, marrow-piercing, and adhere
In senseless union, to the frozy rocks.

Apart from those dying of cold or pure starvation, there were many deaths due to other associated diseases, such as typhus and dysentery, as related in The Newcastle Courant which reported
…an uncommon Mortality among the poor People by Fevers and Fluxes, owing no doubt in a great Measure to their poor Living, the Price of Corn being risen to an excessive Rate…

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, along with the Chief Justices and the Lord Chancellor, passed legislation to reduce the price of corn, and Archbishop Boulter, one of the aforementioned Chief Justices, used his own money to arrange to feed the poor. Those found to be hoarding private stocks of grain were induced to share it among the hungry poor, and Kathleen Connolly, the widow of the Speaker William Connolly, already having made efforts to feed the poor on her own initiative, provided work for those who had none. Another Chief Justice, Henry Singleton, also put his hand in his pocket to help the needy.

A curate in County Monaghan, Patrick Skelton, described the scene of the famine: “Whole parishes are almost desolate, and the dead have been eaten in the fields by dogs for want of people to bury them. Whole thousands in a barony have perished, some of hunger and others of disorders occasioned by an unnatural, putrid and unwholesome diet.”

The weather finally began to turn near the latter half of 1741, and though the harvest was not exactly great, at least there was one. Life began slowly to return to some semblance of normality; the dead could be buried, losses counted and arrangements put in place to ensure something like this, an event which was called “The Year of Slaughter”, or in Irish, bliain an áir, never happened again.

Except, of course, it did.

[Trollheart]

Chapter X: Under the English Heel, Part V:
A Time to Stand - Rebellion, Retribution and Revenge

Timeline: 1760 - 1800

Secret Societies: Ireland Goes Underground

There have of course been secret organisations since antiquity, probably dating back to the Egyptians or farther, but they don’t seem to have surfaced in Ireland till the eighteenth century, and seem to have come about as a sort of response to the piss-poor treatment Irish Catholics were getting from their Protestant landlords. Part vigilante force, part protest and part almost mafia in makeup, they began to spring up after the Irish Famine and following the harshest of the Penal Laws. Like I said earlier, you could push a man just so far before he would eventually push back, and right or wrong, these bands of individuals - who might, perhaps, be seen as the forerunners of the Irish gangs who fought over control of areas like New York and Boston in the next century - were ready to push back, and hard.

The Whiteboys

Not to be confused with the present-day Proud Boys, or indeed any white supremacist gang, their name derived from the white smocks they wore on their nightly raids. White doesn’t seem the perfect choice for night raids, but what do I know? Maybe they were demonstrating their contempt for the landlords, maybe they just couldn’t get black ones. An unfortunate name to choose, certainly: makes them sound like the Irish chapter of the KKK, though of course they predate those racist fu[COLOR=“Black”]c[/COLOR]ks, so technically they’d have been the original… you know what? Let’s just cut off that dangerous and pointless line of thought right there before it goes any further.

Anyway, the tactics employed by the Whiteboys included levelling ditches, knocking down fences, threatening behaviour including but not limited to (gasp!) writing letters, and later more direct action such as wounding or killing cattle owned by the landlord and the acquisition of firearms. They were not political in any way, not were they sectarian, welcoming all religions to their ranks. They had a problem only with landlords (though these were invariably English and Protestant) who were forcing, or endeavouring to force, poor farmers and tenants off their lands so that they could be used for grazing cattle and so inflate the landlords’ already healthy pocket books.

The first real instance of the Whiteboys arriving on the scene is around 1761 in Limerick, and indeed most of these societies practiced their art in the south, with chapters in Tipperary, Cork and as far east as Waterford. As they grew in power and became emboldened, the Whiteboys seem to have developed into an almost paramilitary force, marching in parades to old Jacobite tunes and shouldering rifles. They threatened landlords, and also those who had gained land taken from those who had been evicted, advising them to move, or they would become targets too. Those who did not accede to the Whiteboys’ demands - for instance, putting a light in their house and having horses saddled and ready for their escape if needed - also faced the society’s wrath.

It’s probably fair to say that while they may have been popular with some citizens, notably any whose lands they reclaimed from the (usually absentee) landlords, the Whiteboys were feared and hated by more, so when the Crown struck back and Charles, Marquess of Drogheda, arrested over 150 Whiteboys, including a priest who had been helping them, there wasn’t exactly outrage from the Irish citizenry, even when the priest, tried and convicted of being an accessory to murder by helping the bandits, was hanged. The Whiteboys’ somewhat indiscriminatory tactics won them few friends among the people they were supposed to be helping, and they weren’t exactly looked upon as Robin Hood figures.

So much of a problem were they seen as being by the authorities that several Whiteboy Acts were passed by Parliament, the first, the original named one, in 1765, with four more up to 1831.

Hearts of Oak

Somewhat in contrast, the Hearts of Oak (also called Oakboys and Greenboys - just get the Orange boys in there now and we’d have the tricolour!) rose in the north, in County Antrim, and were more worried about paying taxes and mending roads than landlords using their land. In Ulster, every man was required to give six days’ service and six days of horse work every year building and maintaining roads, mostly for the convenience and comfort of the contribute-nothing gentry. They also resented paying tithes, taxes payable to a Church they did not support, the Church of England. They were mostly farmers and weavers, and their name came from their habit of wearing a piece of oak leaf in their hats (why not then Hats of Oak? Probably didn’t sound as hard and cool I guess).

Their protest movement quickly spread to five other counties of Ulster, and they didn’t seem to be fans of turnpike toll roads either, which you can understand; if they were responsible for maintaining the roads, why then should they also have to pay to travel them? Then there was the matter of “small dues”, where the Church would demand a payment from Catholics or Presbyterians who got married, held funerals or had a child baptised, whether or not it took place in an Anglican church. The Hearts of Oak seem to have had two ways of inducing people to join, one being to force or intimidate them and the other being to attract them via the lavish parades and marches they put on, an almost carnival-like atmosphere that differed radically from their southern counterparts’ militaristic displays.

They seem to have been less overtly violent, relying on threats and warnings rather than causing actual harm; they forced landowners, gentry and clergy to sign their petitions, turning up in force outside their houses and bringing along a handy gallows which the homeowner was left in no doubt they would use if he refused, and their power grew to the level that their demands were met, and those who did not comply were often run out of the town by them. Like the Whiteboys, they were eventually routed by the military, but unlike their compatriots, who had, as mentioned, actual Parliamentary Acts passed about them, the Oakboys received a general pardon and by 1763 had more or less disbanded.

Peep o’ Day Boys

While the above two groups were a mix of religions - mostly Presbyterian and Catholics - the Peep o’ Day Boys (nothing to do with lost sheep) were exclusively Protestant, and they too rose in Armagh, though about twenty years after the Oakboys. In contrast with most of Ulster, Armagh was in fact more or less about equal in its population of Catholics and Protestants, and the relaxing of some of the Penal Laws - specifically those allowing Catholics to vote and purchase land - irked the Protestants, who believed the heretics were getting off too lightly. Neither did they take kindly to being outbid on land plots by mere Catholics! Tensions were simmering and would soon reach a boiling point, though for the record most of the rest of Ireland was relatively at peace.

Not in Armagh though! Gangs began to be formed, like the Presbyterian Nappach Fleet Gang, the Protestant Bawn and the Catholic Bunker Hill Defenders, usually just shortened to Defenders. Each prepared for battle with the others, and in a scene reminiscent of Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, agreed to meet on Whit Monday 1785 and duke it out. When the battle was called off, the gangs dispersed but the Nappach Fleet turned to raiding Catholic homes and renamed themselves the Peep o’ Day Boys, the name being a local colloquialism for break of day, to tie in with their dawn raids. These raids were ostensibly to deprive Catholics of weapons, which under the Penal Laws they were forbidden to carry or own (though this law was rarely if ever observed and never enforced), but really it was just a pretext to beat up Catholics, whom they feared were getting too strong and close to being equal with them, which would never do.

As the Catholics armed themselves in defence against these attacks, battle lines were drawn and things were coming to a head.

The Defenders

Originally formed as the Bunker Hill Defenders, this Catholic organisation came into being in direct response to the raids made by the Protestant Peep o’ Day Boys. It should have come as no surprise to anyone; Ulster was Protestant-dominated (despite the distribution of populace in Armagh, Penal Laws and local prejudices kept Catholics out of most positions of power, so the authorities were almost exclusively Protestant) and while they did not exactly turn a blind eye to the attacks on Catholic homes, they didn’t exactly go after the perpetrators in any real way either, unlike the Whiteboys. There’s no evidence to suggest such, but you’d have to think that on some level they might even have tacitly supported or encouraged them. Left with nobody to speak for or protect their people, the Catholics naturally formed their own society.

Perhaps oddly for Catholics, their oath included a promise of loyalty to King George III; they took to patrolling at night, on the lookout for the Peep o’ Day Boys, at first buying arms from a Protestant shop but later raiding the homes of the gentry to get their weapons. The Defenders would be the most long-lived of the secret societies in Ireland, later linking up with the Ribbonmen and the United Irishmen as Ireland began to fight back in a serious way. The two gangs regularly fought it out, meeting often at markets and fairs, laying waste to all around them and causing much bodily harm, even occasionally death, and terrorising the towns. These periods of gang warfare were known, in a typically understated Irish way (after all, we called over thirty years of sectarian violence “The Troubles” and for us World War II was “The Emergency”!) as “The Armagh Disturbances”.

There we’ll leave them for now, but the Defenders have a bigger part to play in the attempt to liberate their country, as we’ll see later.

Hearts of Steel

Like the Hearts of Oak, they were a Protestant organisation, but unlike their almost-namesakes they concentrated more on rent and evictions. In that way, they could perhaps be said to be a hybrid organisation, taking elements from the Whiteboys and the Hearts of Oak. They too operated in Antrim, which certainly seemed to be a hotbed of conflict in an otherwise peaceful Ireland in the middle of the eighteenth century. They arose later than the Hearts of Oak, possibly considered their successors, in 1769, as a direct rebuff to the middlemen, speculators who bought land from absentee landlords and rented it at twice or three times the price they had paid, to poor (presumably Protestant) tenants, thereby profiteering.

Incensed by the capture and imprisonment of a tenant who had been forced off his land by a greedy landlord who sold it to a middleman, the tenant charged with maiming the landlord’s cattle, the Hearts of Steel surrounded his house and threatened to burn it down if the man was not released. Though charged by the army, the Hearts of Steel carried through on their threat, and rather than see further destruction, the mayor agreed to release the prisoner. High rents and a poor harvest led to deprivation for the poor, and the Hearts of Steel took up this cause and fought for it.

They maimed cattle (“houghing”), demanded land be leased at a fair rate, and forced farmers to sell food at affordable prices. In March 1772 a huge force of about 2000 Steelboys descended on Gifford Castle, scene of the taking of their leaders a few days earlier, and engaged in a pitched battle with the owner of the castle, Richard Johnston, forcing him to flee. He returned however with military support and drove them off, later pursuing and hunting them down so that they could stand trial in Dublin, where, for some reason, none were found guilty.

Nevertheless, the end was near for the Hearts of Steel, as the Irish government, fed up with the Armagh disturbances, sent in the army and brutally repressed the protests.

Although Irishmen had fought against English occupation for hundreds of years, almost always this was along sectarian lines. Catholics, dispossessed and disenfranchised, and under some English monarchs tortured and killed in great numbers, wished really only to be equal with the Protestant settlers who had been forced upon them. Truth to tell, many probably wanted the Ascendancy out of Ireland, but at the same time nobody really envisioned or fought for an independent Ireland, so far as I can see, unlike the Scots who battled bravely for their right to self-governance in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

To some degree, I imagine, the protection of the English king or queen, rather than their wrath, would have been preferred by the Irish, and while they struggled to replace Protestant monarchs on the English throne with more sympathetic Catholic ones, it doesn’t seem as if any Irish tried to bring down the actual monarchy. Even the Gunpowder Plot, orchestrated by Catholics, did not see the government of England disappearing, only replaced by one they wanted. In theory, it’s likely that, had the monarch of any era granted Catholics in Ireland the same rights as Protestants, the Irish would have been happy to have continued to be subservient to the English Crown.

So it would appear that the first real efforts at true independence for Ireland came in the middle of the eighteenth century, and his was one of the first, if not the first, attempt at releasing Ireland from its forced union with Great Britain.

What’s more, he achieved his aim.

Kind of.

[Trollheart]

Henry Grattan (1746 - 1820)

One of the greatest advocates on Ireland’s side during the latter half of the eighteenth century, Grattan, though a Protestant, supported Ireland’s right to self-governance, though he still believed it should always pay homage to the English king. Under Poynings Law (1494) no legislation could be passed in Ireland until it had gained the approval of the English Privy Council, and in fact laws could be passed pertaining to Ireland by the English government without any involvement of the Irish Parliament, making it entirely dependent on, and subservient to, the Crown. Grattan intended to have this ancient law abolished, so that Irish matters could be decided by Irishmen, or at least, Anglo-Irish, as Catholics - what you would have to call the true Irish - were still banned from holding any public office by the Penal Laws still in force, and that most definitely included sitting in Parliament. Grattan was a patriot, born in Dublin and having studied at Trinity College, and quickly rising to the leadership of the Irish Patriot Party, which stood in strong opposition to what was known as the Castle Party, those hardline Protestants who wished England to retain total control over Irish legislation and fought any efforts to the contrary.

Grattan took his seat in the Irish Parliament in 1775. A year later, England was having serious trouble with another, younger colony, and events in Ireland began to take something of a back seat, less important now than bringing the upstart America to heel. Partly as a response to this, and also using the absence of British troops as a springboard to further their own political agenda, the Volunteers were formed.

The Volunteers

When British troops were sent to the colony to fight in what would become the American War of Independence, wealthy landowners feared for their own safety and that of their property, worrying about who and what would fill the power vacuum which opened up. I guess it’s easiest to equate the Volunteers with the British Home Guard that ostensibly protected Britain from Nazi invasion during the Second World War. They were held in contempt by the regular army, who deemed them as barely fit for service and ensured they were given the crappiest and most menial jobs they could be given; their commitment was questioned, as was their courage. They were basically militias of Protestant (obviously: at this point the Penal Laws still forbade Catholics to carry arms, and while the secret societies already discussed may have got around that, there could be no official sanction for arming Catholics) who feared Spanish or French invasion of Ireland, believing that England’s traditional enemies might take advantage of the bulk of His Majesty’s forces being abroad. There were however some Catholics and Presbyterians admitted after the Catholic Relief Act of 1778.

With the British victory over the Spanish in 1780 the fears of invasion dissipated, and the Volunteers turned to political aims, intending to gain concessions for Ireland, such as free trade with Britain, and with their power growing the British government acceded to their demands. The chapters in Ulster seem to have been the most militant, calling for Irish legislative independence (while of course remaining loyal to the king) and between pressure from them and Grattan (no I haven’t forgotten who I’m writing about) what was known as the Constitution of 1782 came to be, and the largely autonomous parliament that ruled - for a few short years - was known as Grattan’s Parliament.

Grattan’s Parliament

While it would take another 150 years before Ireland would gain her total independence, the Constitution of 1782 was the first major step in freeing her from the bondage of the English Crown. Since Norman times the Irish Parliament had acted only under the sufferance of the monarch, effectively an arm of the English government. Therefore no laws could be passed there without the approval of the king or queen, which meant of course no laws the English government did not agree with. Grattan was, however, loyal to the Crown and wished to preserve the connection with England, just not be at its whim. He was also for Catholic emancipation, which as you can imagine did not go down well across the water. Or indeed in Ireland, at least with the landed classes, who had made their money off the backs of poor Catholics, either as servants (virtual slaves with few if any rights) or by possessing their land for themselves. Equal rights for Catholics was most assuredly not on the Protestant agenda!

Nevertheless, when the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 was passed in the British Parliament, Grattan managed to get an Irish version passed only two years later, which eased pressure on Irish Catholics, allowing them into some public offices and to be educated, but the king’s stubborn refusal to even countenance the freedom of his Catholic subjects would explode in violence and uproar seven years later.

[Trollheart]

Rebellion! Ireland fights back

Having seen the success the French had had in 1789, Irish Catholics banded together with Presbyterians from Ulster to form a society they called the United Irishmen, to try to force reform and fair treatment for all. The recent American War of Independence, and the triumph of George Washington’s fledgling colony over the might of the British Empire, was also fresh in their minds. Having sent a declaration to the French people on the second anniversary of the taking of the Bastille which read "As Irishmen, We too have a country, and we hold it very dear—so dear… that we wish all Civil and Religious Intolerance annihilated in this land,” the Irish were honoured in turn by the Revolution on Bastille Day the following year with the French National Assembly hailing the soldiers of the new republic as “the advance guard of the world”.

William Drennan (1754 - 1820)

The man who proposed the United Irishmen was a physician, a poet and a radical democrat. Born a Presbyterian in Belfast, he moved to Dublin in 1789 and got involved first with the Volunteers, and then helped create the United Irishmen, seeing Britain’s embarrassing defeat by the Americans as the perfect time to force Ireland’s agenda. He suggested the society as a “benevolent conspiracy, a plot for the people” and contended its true aim would be “Real independence to Ireland and Republicanism.” The United Irishmen would push for total emancipation for Catholics and proper representation for all peoples in the Parliament.

When he was arrested in May 1793 however, accused of sedition and consorting with French spies, though acquitted and having called all Irish men to stand to arms, he seems to have been abandoned by his fellows, and moved to Scotland, and while there worried that the course the French Revolution was taking, as Catholicism - indeed, all religions - were being trodden on and denounced by the Assembly, might turn Irish people (especially Catholics, known to be always devout to their religion) from these possible allies. The bloody and often indiscriminate violence that followed the coup d’etat didn’t seem to give him such a problem.

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763 - 1798)

Known forever after in Irish history only as Wolfe Tone, he would go on to be one of the great heroes of, and martyrs to Irish independence. Although a Protestant (and an Anglican at that) he was forward-thinking enough and had enough patriotic fervour to reach across the sectarian divide and suggest that all Irish people, of all faiths and religions work together for the true independence of Ireland. He abhorred Grattan’s acceptance of the Constitution of 1782, believing it was a compromise, and his insistence on Ireland remaining tied to the Crown. Wolfe Tone proposed full and free autonomy for his native land, and to this end helped create the United Irishmen with William Drennan.

Despairing, however, of any chance of acceptance by the Irish Parliament, which was still controlled by Protestants, Tone set his sights on France, and when the Reverend William Jackson, an Irish priest who had been exiled to France, arrived to scope out Ireland as a possible invasion target from which to harry the English, Tone received him enthusiastically, telling him Ireland was ripe for revolution. Unfortunately, the bishop was betrayed and, having been arrested for treason, killed himself by taking poison and collapsing during his trial. Before fleeing to America, Tone met with other United Irishmen and together they swore “never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence." Tone spent only a year in America, thoroughly disenchanted with the place before making his way to France, where he requested a French invasion of Ireland. There too he recorded his philosophy of independence for his native country, words which would later appear on his tomb: “Our independence must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not support us, they must fall; we can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class of the community, the men of no property”

The invasion was agreed, and he accompanied an expedition at the close of 1796 which was sent to support the coming Irish revolution, but weather off Bantry Bay made it impossible for the French vessels to land, and they were forced to return home. He tried again - with both the French and the Dutch (Batavia) - and finally managed to land in Ireland in September of 1798, but his fleet was defeated by the British, he was taken prisoner, put on trial, and committed suicide rather than wait for an answer to his request that he be shot.

The bloody massacres in Paris of 1792 added fuel to a panicky fire among Protestants that should Catholics gain power they would act in a similar manner, savagely taking retribution on their oppressors. However the French Republic’s move away from the respect for and authority of the Pope alienated them from the Irish Catholics, who deplored the capture of Pius VI under Napoleon, his imprisonment and later death. On the one hand, you’d have to imagine that George III, traditionally an enemy of Rome since Henry VIII’s time, might have welcomed the news of the old pope’s death, but on the other, he certainly didn’t like the idea of the new French Republic extending their revolution to Italy and claiming it, too, a republic. So the last thing he wanted was an Irish revolution to go with it.

But that’s exactly what he got.

[Trollheart]

Prelude to the Rising: The Battle of the Diamond and the formation of the Orange Order

With tensions between Protestants and Catholics as high as ever, feelings running high at the rise of the United Irishmen and their potential threat to the Ascendancy power, the two secret societies, the Peep o’ Day Boys and the Defenders arranged to meet at the Diamond, a small crossroads halfway between Loughgall and Portadown in Armagh. Despite the efforts of four Protestant landowners and three Catholic priests to broker a truce or peace treaty, the two factions met on September 21 1795 and prepared for battle. It appears from contemporary accounts that in fact the peace deal had been struck, but that it was Defenders not from Armagh but from Tyrone, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth, who had come for the fight and were disappointed to see there would be none, who kicked it all off.

The Peep o’ Day Boys, heading home, were accosted by a force of about 300 Defenders and turned to engage them. Though outnumbered, the Protestants had the high ground, and were better skilled with weapons, resulting in their taking no casualties in the short brutal battle while accounts vary of the losses taken by the Catholics, from thirty to forty-eight. Clearly, the Peep o’ Day Boys won the Battle of the Diamond decisively. After the battle, glorying in their victory, the Peep o’ Day Boys founded the Orange Order, with the declaration of defending “the king and his heirs so long as he or they support the Protestant Ascendancy.” Pretty much immediately afterwards they took their revenge on Catholics, burning houses, attacking homes and perpetrating what have gone down in history as “the Armagh outrages”.

This was part of a concerted effort on the part of the Orangemen to drive “from this quarter of the country the entire (sic) of its Roman Catholics population”, from where the oft-used phrase originated, that appeared on signposts around the county and warned Catholics they had two choices: “To Hell or Connaught” (Connaught or Connacht being one of the other provinces of Ireland, part of what is now the Republic, where the likes of Galway and other western towns are) - essentially kicking them out of Ulster and over the border. Their intimidatory tactics worked, and within a month over 7,000 Catholics had been forced to leave Armagh. The Governor, Lord Gosford remarked of what was pretty little less than a pogrom: "It is no secret that a persecution is now raging in this country … the only crime is … profession of the Roman Catholic faith. Lawless banditti have constituted themselves judges … and the sentence they have denounced … is nothing less than a confiscation of all property, and an immediate banishment.”

This process would, you may be surprised to hear, be repeated almost two hundred years later, when in the 1970s Catholics would be forced from Ulster in the face of growing Protestant oppression and would seek refuge here in the south.

Maith an Chailin!* A Woman’s place is in the fight - the women also rise

(*Literally, good girl!)

Nobody would venture to suggest that Ireland was ever a hotbed of suffrage, and it’s hard to name one Irish advocate for women’s rights, but then that does come with the proviso that up until 1923 we were not a sovereign nation and would have to go along with what was decided in Britain. Nevertheless, like the women of France during the French Revolution, and despite attempts by revisionist historians to write them out and ignore them, women did fight in and support the rebellion of 1798. Not all of them physically fought, but many offered shelter or encouragement or whatever they could to the rebels, and here I’d like to look at some of those names which have triumphed above the efforts of male chroniclers to pretend all an Irish woman was good for was making babies or homes, or as it was disparagingly put at the time, that they could only be “maids or madonnas.” Yeah.

Mary Ann McCracken (1770 - 1866)

Sister of Henry Joy McCracken, one of the founders of the United Irishmen, she provided shelter for her brother and his comrades after their defeat at the Battle of Antrim (SPOILER ALERT! Now come on: you didn’t really think the rebellion was going to succeed, did you? What about 1916?) and brought them food and supplies as they hid in the hills. She was preparing their escape by sea when her brother was recognised by soldiers, and he and his compatriots arrested. After his execution, she took care of his illegitimate daughter, as nobody else in the family would recognise her.

She was a reformer, social campaigner and later an abolitionist, working to better the lives of Belfast’s children, setting up schools and orphanages and engaging teachers to educate the children. She helped form, and was chair of, the Ladies Committee of the Belfast Charitable Society from 1832 - 1855, inspecting homes to which children from the orphanage and poorhouse had been sent to ensure their safety and suitability. She led the Womens Abolition Committee in Belfast, tirelessly campaigning for an end to slavery, and was aghast when the cause was so quickly dropped after the rebellion, but even at the ripe old age of 88 she haunted the Belfast docks, handing out anti-slavery pamphlets to those boarding ships headed to America.

Mary Shackleton Leadbetter* (1728 - 1826)

In contrast to Bridget Dolan, of whom we will hear soon, she was a total pacifist, involved with the Society of Friends, a Quaker organisation, which was her faith, but she experienced first-hand the brutality of the English forces after the defeat of the rebels in 1798. She was a diarist, and writes of yeomanry “from whose bosom pity seems banished” and soldiers who occupied her village of Ballitore, torturing and flogging the people, till a force of 300 rebels took the town, taking revenge on the oppressors before being themselves routed by a returning English force. Mary herself was almost killed by a soldier, and saw the town doctor, a man who she “believed had never raised his hand to injure any one” be killed “unarmed and alone”. When the village was burned, Mary fled with the rest of the survivors.

* May be Leadbeater, as this is how it’s spelled in some accounts

Elizabeth Pim

Another Quaker, she did not take part in the rebellion and seems to be one of the few who did not take sides, seeing the brutality of it from both factions. On May 24 she watched the rebels approach the town and battle with the British, and when the latter were withdrawn the next day it seems to have been a shock to the villagers, many of whom accompanied them as they left, presumably for protection. Two days later, as the rebels took the town, she saw the garrison which had been left behind surrender but be butchered by the Irishmen, priests and teachers among them.

By May 28 the British forces had retaken the village, having been only dissuaded from levelling it with cannon by the discovery that there were Quakers living there, with whom they had no quarrel. Showing there was after all little difference between the two sides, the British soldiers then began to plunder the village and celebrate their victory.

Elizabeth Richards

On the other side of the fence you have this lady, a devout Anglican, a wealthy landowner (or I should say, married to one, as women did not have the right to own property at this time, no matter their faith or standing, and depended entirely on their husbands in that regard, and in the eyes of the law) and a staunch supporter of the Crown, who hated the United Irishmen and their cause, and worried what would happen to her should their rebellion succeed. A very brave woman, she refused to follow the example of her contemporaries in converting, even though she was of the very clear conviction that it might cost her her life.

Assured by a Catholic priest that no massacre was intended (though as we have seen, slaughter on a smaller scale, village by village or town by town did occur; whether that was planned or just the result of frustrations, long-pent-up hatred and the euphoria of victory is uncertain) she nevertheless referred to the Catholics as “savages” and had full confidence in the power of the Protestant soldiers to defeat them. Perhaps naive in her arrogance, she refused to countenance rumours - which were true - of Orangemen killing and raping as they came; maybe this description would nor or could not fit into her overall view of her countrymen as saviours and patriots. She wore, under duress and only to preserve her life, the Irish colours but trampled on them when she had a chance, tried to convince rebels to give up their struggle and submit to the authority of the Crown, but for all that, she made no move against the rebels, fuming instead in impotent anger as she waited to be delivered.

Mary Moore (1776 or 1777 - 1844)

But here was one woman who was a true patriot. Both she and her father were United Irishmen, and she would courier messages from Lord Edward Fitzgerald to other rebels by the ruse of pretending to be injured and having to go to the doctor, even going so far as have her arm bandaged up and her clothes bloody. When the rebellion failed, Lord Edward was staying with Mary, masquerading as her French tutor, and when news came to them that the house was to be raided she managed to move Lord Edward to the house of another trusted rebel, Francis Magan.

Well… not quite. Magan turned out to be yet another informer, and sold her out, pretending he knew nothing about it the next day when he called to ask why Lord Edward had not arrived. The previous night, as she had tried to move him to Magan’s, they had been intercepted by Major Sirr (no, really) but His Lordship had legged it and Mary had him hidden at the house of another sympathiser. When their own house was raided later that day Mary ran to tell the rebels, who were meeting nearby, to be on their guard, and as she returned she was attacked by a British soldier, who cut her with his bayonet. He was shot by an Irish sniper for his troubles.

In the evening the house of Thomas Murphy was raided and Lord Edward taken prisoner. He died in June, succumbing in prison to the wounds he had sustained during his arrest. Mary’s father was arrested the next month, imprisoned for a year and looked likely to be transported, until Mary bribed the prison doctor to rule he was insane, and he was released. Interviewed in 1842, Mary averred that Magan had to be the informer, as he was the only other one who knew where they had been going: even Lord Edward was kept in the dark. Mary died of an unspecified illness in 1844, remembered as a true Irish patriot.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Gray ( c. 1778 - 1798)

Remembered in song and poem, little is actually known of the life of one of the true Irish heroines of the rebellion, but it is known that she was a Presbyterian, fought riding a horse alongside her brother and lover, holding the (or an) Irish flag, and was killed at the Battle of Ballynahinch shortly after the two men were cut down, pleading for the life of their sister with British soldiers (the hated Yeomen, who seem to equate to the Black-and-Tans of the early twentieth century) who had no intention of sparing her because she was a woman. Perhaps surprisingly (or perhaps because it was not opportune for them to do so) they did not rape Betsy - who was said to be beautiful - but cut off her sword hand and then shot her through the head.

Later the wife of one of the “Yeos” was seen wearing her earrings and her green petticoat, which ostracised them from the Catholics in their divided community.

[Psmith]

That’s a list of some impressive women.

[Trollheart]

Red, White and… Green? The influence of the French Revolution and the American War of Independence on the Irish Rising

I noted elsewhere in this article that had Catholics been granted the same rights as Protestants in Ireland, there would have been little appetite for any sort of rebellion. Overall, Irish people didn’t seem to have a problem with being ruled by an English king, just one who oppressed them on the grounds of their religion. So up until about now, the mid to late eighteenth century, I see no moves towards gaining independence for Ireland. But with the French Revolution seeming, on the face of it, so successful, and with the breaking away of the American colonies from the iron and unfair grip of the king, to say nothing of the Polish Constitution passed in 1791, it must have looked to the United Irishmen as if Ireland had a chance. England had been weakened by its war with America (both in manpower and, more importantly, in its reputation as one of the superpowers of the eighteenth century) and the French, initially at least, were fellow Catholics.

I’m sure it wasn’t that glib or simple that the Irish just thought, sure why not, let’s give it a go, but the time must have seemed opportune to press their cause. In other ways, it might have been the worst possible time. Fuming at his defeat in America, worried over the expanding reach of the new French Republic, which had just taken Rome and captured the Pope, King George III might have been in no mood to take shit from a load of piss-poor Catholics and assorted what he would have considered traitors. While it’s unlikely he was spoiling for a fight, you could make the argument that he might have relished the chance to bolster back up his reputation, take out his frustration at being kicked out of America, and ready too to show the French they weren’t going to have it all their own way, that Britain was still, despite what they might have heard, a force to be reckoned with.

Of course, I could equally be talking complete bollocks. I’m no historian and these conclusions or guesses are not based on anything other than my own reading of the situation, which may be way off. Maybe the Irish just decided they’d had enough with being ruled by kings and queens. They’d tried unsuccessfully for centuries to sponsor the rise of a Catholic monarch to the English throne, and even when their prayers were answered, he was still a bastard to them. So it’s possible they said, Catholic or Protestant king? You know what? We’ll have none of the above. And decided it was time to be their own masters.

His Majesty, of course, had other ideas on that score.

Land of Spies and Snitches: Turncoats and Traitors of the Rising

Not every Irishman was dedicated to the overthrow of British rule over Ireland, it would seem, and as in so many instances down through our history, there was a line of people willing to sell out their comrades for either amnesty, money or both; people who betrayed Ireland at a time when, had it not been for their cowardice and treachery, we might have had a chance of winning our independence, something we would now have to wait a further 150 years for.

According to Brendan O’ Cathaoir, writing in The Irish Times in 2004, Irishmen were not the best at keeping secrets in the first place, and while there were plenty ready to sell them out, some of their own talk may have sealed the fate of many. The idea of a quiet Irishman in a pub - particularly a fired-up, oppressed, English-hating would-be rebel, is hard to imagine, if such a creature existed. So some of the secret plans of the United Irishmen were doubtless loudly proclaimed in drinking establishments, boasted of, used as threats and forecasts of things to come, and surely reached the ears of those who should not have heard of such things.

All of that notwithstanding though, let’s look at some of the people who were instrumental in thwarting the first real attempt by Ireland to throw off her shackles and free her people.

Leonard McNally (1752 - 1820)

Probably not fair to call him a supergrass, as that referred more to a turncoat, someone captured for committing crime (usually of a paramilitary kind) and who turned informer for money. Supergrass was an expansion on the term grass, which has two proposed origins, one being that it comes from grasshopper, which is said to be Cockney rhyming slang for copper (though I’ve never heard of anyone using that term) and the other refers to the traditional snake in the grass, denoting a traitor. Whichever story is true, while McNally may not have been a supergrass he certainly was a grass, a spy who worked for the British government and betrayed his comrades in the United Irishmen.

A barrister by trade, McNally took it one step further, collaborating with the prosecution while ostensibly conducting the prisoner’s defence, to ensure a conviction. It does appear though that he didn’t join the United Irishmen intending to betray them (from all accounts and as far as I can gather) but was spooked by the betrayal of Reverend Jackson as he and Wolfe Tone discussed a French invasion of Ireland. He obviously found it profitable then to use his position in the organisation, of which he was a founder member, to pass secrets back to the British and ensure the coming rebellion failed. There’s no record of his having been pressured or threatened to do this, so whether he had intended to become a spy or it just happened, he’s still a bastard and his name reviled here in Ireland.

Seems he was never caught, either. His treachery (or patriotism I guess, depending on which side of the conflict you’re on) only came to light after his death.

Edward John Newell (1771 - 1798)

Possibly the worst and most prolific informer who did more than any other to turn in rebels during and after the rebellion, Newell started out of course as a member of the United Irishmen, though originally he had tried to hold down various jobs, the longest being as a painter and glazier, his naturally fractious nature leading to his parting with his employer after two years. He did spend nearly a year at sea, but in the eighteenth century that could be almost just one voyage, so it’s no great indication that he took to the life of a sailor.

It’s not clear whether he joined the United Irishmen in order to inform on them, whether he felt pushed into it by circumstances or whether he just changed loyalties, but he became an invaluable spy for Dublin Castle. His preferred method seemed to be to accompany a squad of soldiers through villages and towns (suitably disguised) and point out rebels, who would later be arrested. He boasted in his autobiography, rather provocatively titled The Life and Confessions of Newell, the Informer, that he had sent 227 men into the tender mercies of the British government, for which he says he was paid £2,000.

Unlike McNally though he did not survive the rebellion, being assassinated (it is said, and only expected too) by the United Irishmen as he made plans to escape by sea to America. Bones found on the beach at Ballyholme in Bangor, Co, Down in 1828 were said to be his, indicating he may have drowned - or more likely, been drowned or thrown into the sea there.

There were even female traitors and spies…

Bridget Dolan (1777 - )

Perhaps the quintessential Irish tomboy, Bridget mixed with boys and learned to ride, a skill which would stand her in good stead when it came to taking part in the rebellion, which she did, riding on raiding trips and possibly reconnaissance ones too. In the rebellion, women were used as couriers, nurses, to carry supplies and carry messages and information to the men. Bridget was different. At Kilballyowen she took part in the ambush of a military supply convoy, setting the baggage car on fire. She later turned traitor though, selling out her comrades to the English and bearing witness against them in their trials after the rebellion was crushed (what? I told you that already).

Samuel Turner (1765 - 1807)

Appropriately named indeed! With aliases such as “Richardson” and “Fumes” he betrayed the United Irishmen, having been captured as part of their executive just prior to the rising, and was paid afterwards a pension from the British government. He it was who passed the information to the British that Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O’Connor were meeting in Hamburg to secure support for the rebellion. It’s said he died in a duel in the Isle of Man. He is however another one whose treachery was never uncovered while he lived, and he enjoyed the reputation of an Irish patriot, even sharing the company of later freedom fighter Daniel O’Connell.

Francis Higgins

One of four editors of supposedly nationalist newspapers and journals which paid obeisance to Dublin Castle and in addition informed on the Irish rebels, Higgins ran the so-called Freeman’s Journal, and was in fact a kind of handler or spymaster, controlling, among others, Francis Magan, who as we saw betrayed Lord Edward Fitzgerald. He was known as “the sham squire”, due to his actions in securing a bride through the agency of forged documents which portrayed him falsely as a wealthy landowner, his wife fleeing in the wake of the discovery of his treachery, and her father taking an action against him which landed him in jail. After a further fraud returned him behind bars Higgins fell in with the owner of a pub and gambling den, Charles Reilly, from whom he assumed ownership of both it and Reilly’s wife until her death, after which he turned the pub into a brothel.

In perhaps an attempt to go a bit more legitimate (and in so doing increase his rather low standing in Irish society) Higgins next got into the clothing trade, then became a barrister and finally had a chance to buy a share in, and then buy outright the newspaper mentioned above, The Freeman’s Journal. He made most of his profit from contracts received from the British government, and was happy to work for them, employing a network of spies which grew to a complement of seven at its height. In 1801 he received an annual pension from the government of £300 a year but died a year later.

Thomas Reynolds (1771 - 1836 )

Born a Catholic, he originally support the Catholic Convention of 1792, but later became more cautious and converted to Protestantism. He married a sister of Theobald Wolfe Tone’s wife, and joined the United Irishmen, ironically at the invitation of the man he was to betray, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, becoming its treasurer and given the rank of colonel. According to his own statement, when he realised how violent the rebellion was to be, he turned against them and informed Dublin Castle where the ruling council known as the Directory (surely as a nod to the same assemblage in France) could be found, leading to their arrest.

Having retired to his castle in Kilkea, he was more than surprised, as a government agent, to find it attacked and destroyed by British forces. In his biography Life of Thomas Reynolds, 1839, his son recounts the destruction of the castle: “It has been my father’s lot since then to witness the ravages of war in the peninsula, where Spanish, French, Portuguese and English, with their German auxiliaries, men trained to rapine, alternately plundered and devastated the country; but in all that disorder of which he was an eye-witness for six years, he has frequently assured me that he never saw such cold-blooded, wanton, useless destruction as was committed [by the King’s troops] at Kilkea and the surrounding country.”

After repeated attempts to kill him, he eventually sought the protection of Dublin Castle, declaring himself firmly on the side of the British, was given lodging there and gave evidence against his former comrades. He later left Ireland and went to Lisbon, Iceland and eventually died in Paris in 1836 at the age of 65.

[Trollheart]

Are you ready, Lord Edward? Uh-huh. Thomas? Yeah! Oliver? Okay.

Well all right, fellas… LET’S GO!!!

The Irish Rebellion, 1798

“England had its luckiest escape since the Spanish Armada” - Theobald Wolfe Tone, The Writing of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763-1798 Volume II: America, France and Bantry Bay: August 1795 to December 1796 (December 26 1796)

With the failure of the French invasion of 1796 and his own return to exile, Wolfe Tone attempted to persuade the French general, Napoleon Bonaparte (who had yet to rise to the throne of France as its emperor) to invade Ireland, but he really wasn’t that interested. Napoleon, a product of the Revolution, cared little for the sectarian politics of Ireland and knew less about the country itself (though the idea of sticking it to England surely must have tickled him). Although born and baptised as a Catholic in Italy, he had no time for religion, other than using it to increase his power, and until the Concordat between France and Pope Pius VII in 1801 France technically had no state religion, Indeed, ten years after the signing Napoleon would invade Italy and take the pope hostage. In a chilling both reverse and future echo, French children at the time were taught to love not the Church but Napoleon (Henry VIII may not have gone quite this far but the implication was clear - that he was the Church and the Church was him, and Hitler of course ensured all members of the Nazi party swore a personal oath to him, not to Germany, though this wasn’t exactly a religious one), and later emancipated all faiths during his reign.

Despite that fact that it had been a failed effort, when reports came to the British government of Wolfe Tone’s approach to Napoleon it caused unease, and the rising tensions in Ireland only added to that, as magistrates in several counties were attacked. Ireland seemed to be heading for an uprising, and was not about to wait for French assistance that might not arrive. The Viceroy of Ireland, Lord Camden, was pressured to take action and arrest the leaders of the unrest, by hardline Irish MPs who had no idea what the strength of feeling was back in Ireland. Camden feared provoking the would-be rebels, but when the size of the force assembling became clear he had no choice and moved to arrest some of the leaders. As expected and feared, this only whetted the appetite of the United Irishmen for rebellion, especially as their main leader had escaped.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763 - 1798)

Son of the first Duke of Leinster, Fitzgerald was a British Army officer who distinguished himself against the Americans in the War of Independence, but after spending time in France during the Revolution - where he publicly renounced his own title - he became enamoured of the Irish cause for freedom. Elected to the parliament in 1790 he sided with Grattan’s Patriot Party, and in 1796 travelled to Hamburg with Arthur O’Connor to try to open a dialogue with the French and gain their support for the planned uprising, much as Wolfe Tone was doing at the same time. The Duke of York warned his wife that Fitzgerald’s plans were known to them, and he had better step back, but he ignored such advice, leading to the abortive attempt at invasion at the end of the year.

Fitzgerald was betrayed on multiple fronts, first by Samuel Turner, who advised London of his dealings in Hamburg, and later by Leonard McNally, treachery that led to his almost being captured, and finally by Francis Magan, which did lead to his being arrested. His fellow Protestants however were willing to save him, allow him to escape to England and avoid the fate of a traitor, (most likely to spare the Ascendancy’s blushes at one of their own having thrown in his lot with the Irishmen) but Fitzgerald refused to abandon his comrades, and accordingly was taken, as related in the stories above of both McNallly and Mary Moore.

Although apparently he was entreated to go quietly, having been taken sick in bed (out of which he leaped when he heard the soldiers at the door) he attacked the men who came to arrest him, and was only subdued when Major Sirr shot him in the shoulder. As his wound does not seem to have been treated during his incarceration it worsened and eventually he died of his wounds on June 4 1798, at the height of the rebellion.

After his death, his sister made this eulogy of her brother: Irishmen, Countrymen, it is Edward FitzGerald’s sister who addresses you: it is a woman but that woman is his sister: she would therefore die for you as he did. I don’t mean to remind you of what he did for you. 'Twas no more than his duty. Without ambition he resigned every blessing this world could afford to be of use to you, to his Countrymen whom he loved better than himself, but in this he did no more than his duty; he was a Paddy and no more; he desired no other title than this.

Arthur O’Connor (1763 - 1852)
(Yes, another of history’s little quirks: two major leaders of the rebellion, born in the same year)

Born into a family of divided loyalties, O’Connor, a Protestant, had five brothers, three of which shared his republican sentiments (fuelled, again, by the French Revolution) while the other two were fiercely Unionist. His sister, Anne, forbidden by the family to marry the Catholic man she loved, killed herself. A Member of Parliament from 1790, he joined the United Irishmen in 1796 and with Fitzgerald sought French support for an invasion of Ireland. He later served as a general in Napoleon’s army, and retired to France, having been banished from Ireland.

Thomas Addis Emmet (1764 - 1827)

A lawyer by trade, Emmet joined the United Irishmen in 1795, becoming its secretary that year and being raised to the Executive two years later. Unlike Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who believed the rising should press on with or without them, Emmet favoured waiting for French aid but was taken by the British around the same time as Lord Edward Fitzgerald. You’d have to believe one of the main reasons for the failure of the rising must have been a dearth of leaders and commanders; they all seem to have been arrested before the damn thing got going!

Emmet was imprisoned until 1801 when he was visited by his brother Robert, who also tried to get the French to invade, but his efforts too were futile. Thomas Emmet emigrated to the USA where he became a successful lawyer, eventually rising to the position of Attorney General for the state of New York.

Oliver Bond (1760 - 1798)

The son of a dissenting minister, Bond was born in Donegal and from early in his career added his voice to those loudly demanding parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, and when this road was blocked by the intransigence of the British Crown, he joined the United Irishmen. In defiance of the House of Lords, he continued to promote Irish independence and opposition to a new war with revolutionary France in which England was engaging, and for his pains was imprisoned for six months. A member of the executive of the United Irishmen, meetings usually took place in his house and it was there that the famous declaration was made and signed by all members: “We will pay no attention to any measure which the Parliament of this kingdom may adopt, to divert the public mind from the grand object we have in view; as nothing short of the entire and complete regeneration of our country can satisfy us.”

He was with the fourteen other members of the council when the house was raided on the morning of March 12 and taken prisoner. Four months later, with the rising over and put down, he was convicted and sentenced to hang, this sentence commuted through the intercession of the remaining members of the United Irishmen, but it was all in vain: he died in prison less than five weeks later.

William James McNeven (1763 - 1841)

A physician and chemist, he too was part of the Catholic Convention but unlike Thomas Reynolds he did not withdraw, taking the harder line and joining the United Irishmen and became a contemporary of Wolfe Tone, Fitzgerald and O’Connor, helping to lay the groundwork for the proposed French invasion of Ireland. When that, and the subsequent rebellion failed, he was taken with the other leaders and imprisoned, first in Ireland and later in Scotland. Released in 1802, he joined Wolfe Tone in Paris, fighting for the French, but seeing there was to be no possibility of an invasion he left to go to America, where he held many important academic posts and is affectionately known as “the father of American chemistry”. He died in 1841 in New York.

Samuel Neilson (1761 - 1803)

Originally a member of the Ulster Volunteers, it seems the idea behind the United Irishmen came from Neilson, who suggested it to Henry Joy McCracken, and so he is seen as one of the founders. Though the newspaper he launched, the mouthpiece of the organisation, the Northern Star, took all his money and made him a target for libel (for which he was imprisoned twice) he did not give up and pressed for rebellion once released from prison. He was not on the side of those who wished to wait for the French to step into the fray, and was one of only two (the other being Lord Edward) who avoided arrest the morning Thomas Reynolds turned the leadership in.

Deciding he couldn’t do it on his own, Neilson set out to spring Lord Edward but unfortunately his time at Newgate told against him, as he was recognised by one of the jailers as he cased the joint, dragged in and imprisoned himself. After sharing the same fate as McNevin in the wake of the failure of the rising - imprisoned in Kilmainham and then Scotland - he made his way to the Netherlands but then also followed in McNevin’s footsteps to the USA, where he died of yellow fever in 1803.

Henry Joy McCracken (1767 - 1798)

Founder member of the United Irishmen, we’ve already heard about the efforts of his sister Mary Ann during the rebellion, and that of six children they were the only two to have Irish/Catholic sympathies. Born into a relatively wealthy Presbyterian family (his father was a shipowner and the family made their fortune in linen, also founding the Belfast News Letter, which is still in publication today) he worked with Presbyterian tenant farmers, tradesmen and labourers, and carried messages and information between Belfast and Dublin. Arrested in 1796 he was freed a year later due to serious illness.

He attempted to lead a rising in the north, but ran into apathy, fear and resistance, and a dogged determination not to go ahead without French support. His attempt to seize Antrim Town with a force of 4,000 - 6,000 men failed miserably and he went on the run with about fifty other survivors, but was captured at Carrickfergus as he waited to board a ship, and incarcerated in the jail there. Refusing to turn in his comrades he was hanged on July 17 1798, his body was released into the care of his sister Mary Ann. His last words were that he had done his duty. Perhaps the best eulogy to him was written years later by his friend James “Jemmy” Hope, in his memoir, United Irishman: The Autobiography of James Hope: “When all our leaders deserted us, Henry Joy McCracken stood alone faithful to the last. He led the forlorn hope of the cause …”

[Trollheart]

Thomas Palliser Russell (1767 - 1803)
(Yep, here we go again: born in the same year as McCracken, though he outlived him by a few years)

Another founding member of the United Irishmen, Russell was an Anglican and actually spent time in the British Army in India when younger, distinguishing himself by rescuing his commanding officer, but a meeting with Wolfe Tone (who described it as “the most fortunate of my life”) led to the setting up of the United Irishmen, and after spending some time as a magistrate in Dungannon, appalled by the attitudes against Catholics, he resigned and committed himself to the cause for Irish independence and Catholic emancipation. He was no admirer of Henry Grattan, believing him weak and ineffectual, and denouncing him as “declaiming, and grinning, and chattering at the abuses of that ministry, which but for him would not now exist”.

In June 1795 he was among the gathering at Cave Hill where, prior to Wolfe Tone’s enforced exile, the United Irishmen made their pledge to the cause of Irish freedom, and the next year published A Letter to the People of Ireland, in which he took to task the inequalities of class in Ireland, the greedy aristocracy, and the urgent need for change in the country. He believed in a fairer, more equal government and the rights of the ordinary man and woman - he was a great supporter of suffrage for women - and was so opposed to slavery that he would refuse to even take sugar until the practice of slavery was abolished in the West Indies. He travelled widely throughout the North, recruiting for the United Irishmen, and became known to the government and their spies both there and back in Dublin.

Arrested in September of 1796 while in Belfast, he was in prison when the rising took place (and failed) and having served four years, when released he plotted with Robert Emmet, younger brother of Thomas, the details of a further rising, which also failed. Almost seven years to the day, he was again captured after the failure of the second rebellion, but this time there would be no escape for him. As he listened to the verdict being read against him for the crime of high treason, he expressed surprise “to see gentlemen on the jury (looking at the grand jury box) who had often expressed and advocated political opinions similar to those on which he acted, and for which he had forfeited his life, for the sentiments publicly delivered by them, had assisted to influence his conduct”. Found guilty, he was hanged and beheaded.

James “Jemmy” Hope (1764 - 1847)

A Presbyterian, Hope was greatly influenced by the Hearts of Steel while living in Antrim, and joined the Volunteers, where he met both Henry Joy McCracken and Samuel Neilson. He lamented the secret nature of the United Irishmen, even though he later joined them, believing that the organisation should be upfront and overt about its opposition to the ruling government, prophesying that “oaths will never bind rogues”. Of course he was right, as we’ve seen from the long list of traitors above. Nevertheless he was elected to the executive in Ulster and organised the northern branch of the society, counting only Thomas Emmet, Thomas Russell, Neilson and McCracken as those who truly understood the causes of social disorder and conflict. He said of Belfast that it relied on a system built on three types: those whose industry produced the necessaries of life, those who circulated them, and those whose subsistence depended on fictitious claims and capital, and lived and acted as if men and cattle were created solely for their use and benefit.

In the spring of 1796 Neilson sent him south to organise the workers in Dublin, which he did, returning to Ulster to whip up support for the coming rising. In one week he travelled 700 miles, a hell of a distance in those times of non-mechanised transport and poor roads. During the Armagh Disturbances he attempted to reconcile the Peep o’ Day Boys with the Defenders, but when the rising came he fought well, later refusing amnesty as he believed to have done so would have been “not only a recantation of one’s principles but a tacit acquiescence in the justice of the punishment which had been inflicted on thousands of my unfortunate associates”.

He again answered the call in 1803, when Robert Emmet tried another rising, which was equally brutally put down, and was one of the few to survive not only the 1798 rising but also the 1803 one, dying at the age of 83 in Belfast in 1847.

Thomas McCabe (1739 - 1820)

An industrialist and rabid abolitionist, McCabe was born a Presbyterian in Belfast and vehemently opposed the setting up of a Belfast-based slave trading company, thundering “May God eternally damn the soul of the man who subscribes the first guinea!” He also prevented a slave-owner setting up his shipping business in the city. Wolfe Tone was impressed, and named him “the Irish Slave”. Having read the man’s pamphlet Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland, McCabe invited Wolfe Tone to Belfast, where he set up the northern branch of the United Irishmen.

Though he was too old to fight in the rising, at 59 years old, the meeting to attack Antrim was held in Thomas’s house, and his son, William, acted as the bodyguard for Lord Edward Fitzgerald before the rebel peer was arrested, later escaping to France. Having taken no provable active part in the rebellion, Thomas was not arrested and he died at age 80. Two of his five children were named after rebel leaders, Henry Joy McCabe and Robert Emmet McCabe.

William Putnam McCabe (1776 - 1821)

Third son of Thomas, he joined the United Irishmen and helped Jemmy Hope rally support for the coming rebellion. He was a master of disguise, at one point fooling a judge into believing he was a British Army officer and releasing convicted Defenders into his custody. This talent for disguise came in handy when, with Lord Edward Fitzgerald when he was arrested, he was able to mimic a Scottish accent and plead innocence, thus being set free. He went on to fight in Kildare and Mayo, before fleeing the country in the wake of the failure of the rising. First he settled in Wales (where he married) and later France, where he established a cotton mill which served as a gathering place for Irish rebels preparing for Robert Emmet’s 1803 rising.

With the failure of this rebellion too, and the decisive victory by Nelson at Trafalgar ending any hope of French help, McCabe accepted that there would be no more risings and sued for clemency with the British government. He was allowed entry to England and Scotland, but not his homeland. His end is a little pathetic, as it all seems to hinge on payment of a debt to, of all people, Arthur O’Connor. In an attempt to service this debt, McCabe returned to Ireland - illegally - and was seized and re-deported, this time to Portugal. He tried again, this time he was arrested and imprisoned, which weakened his health. Commenting on the excuse the Irishman pled for breaking his banishment, the Home Secretary remarked ‘“It might be true that Mr McCabe never went to any part of England or Ireland except upon business of his own; but it was very extraordinary that, in whatever part of the king’s dominions his own business brought him, some public disturbance was sure to take place”.

Whether McCabe actually came back to Ireland to try to get his money back from O’Connor, or whether it was subterfuge, cover for other, more rebellious purposes, was never proven. William Putnam McCabe died in Paris, one year after his father’s passing, half his age.

[Trollheart]

Ulster Rises First: Sectarian Slaughter and the Dragooning of Ulster

While the British leadership in Dublin had feared declaring martial law initially, the commander of the forces in Ulster had no such problem.

General Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake (1744 - 1808)

Originally Governor of Limerick, Lake was promoted to command of the forces in Ulster, where he set about brutally dealing with the nascent rising there. He believed in his own maxim - “Nothing but terror will keep them in order” - and made good on his boast, ordering that anyone not in the service of the Crown relinquish any weapons they had, and had the leadership of the Belfast United Irishmen arrested and executed. He let loose the feared and hated Yeomanry - the “Yeos” - who burned houses, raped and tortured, flogged and hanged people, often without trial, or without evidence at a trial. Only Catholic and other dissenters were targeted, and some of the Yeos were in fact of the Orange Order.

His savagery knew no bounds, and was “untroubled by legal restraints or by his troops’ actions” as he essentially harrowed the north, in a wave of violence and repression which became known to history as “the dragooning of Ulster”. One particular punishment his men used was called “pitch-capping”, a process by which a thick piece of paper soaked in pitch (tar) was stuck to someone’s forehead and set alight. They also practiced “shearing”, in which a victim’s earlobes were cut off, for some reason.

General Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was appointed to command of Ireland, tried to restore order, horrified at the butchery his predecessor had wrought on the country, but found himself blocked by Dublin Castle, who were still shaken by the almost-invasion by France which had only been prevented due to the Irish weather, and they gave their tacit approval and endorsement to Lake’s inhuman methods. Abercromby, disgusted, returned to England, leaving Lake to it. Rather ironically, and extremely unfortunately for the Irish, Lake was chosen as his replacement. He now had complete control over the island, and lost no time in bringing his barbaric methods of suppression south.

Critics warned that his brutal treatment of the Irish would force their hand into rebellion, not stay it. They were right.

[Trollheart]

Éirí Amach! The 1798 Irish Rebellion: Rise up fellow Irishmen!

We’ve seen, mostly through the stories of the lives of the men and women who led or were influential in the coming rebellion, how things came to a head, and with the imposition of martial law on Ireland in March, following the arrest of most of the leadership of the United Irishmen, the rising began. It was of course doomed from the start. Much has been made of the inexperience and even the courage of some of the officers leading regiments, and while Ireland had never had as such any sort of proper army and still suffered from internal divisions within the society - some, like Emmet and McNevin wishing to wait for the faint hope of French help - the British had been putting down rebellions and uprisings for centuries. They were superbly trained for it, had an innate dislike of the Catholic Irish, and spared no effort to brutally suppress what they saw as treason against their monarch.

As in so much of history, Ireland was fucked from the beginning.

On the face of it, for an Irish rising the plan was not too bad. It was, as usual, scumbag traitors who ballsed the whole thing up. The original idea was to, unsurprisingly, take Dublin and hold it, with the counties around rising in support and thereby blocking any chance of the capital being relieved from outside. In one way, it made sense: go for the centre of power right away and essentially decapitate the snake. Osama Bin Laden had the same idea, only he nearly succeeded whereas the Irish were betrayed. And the one major flaw with the plan was that if you attack the centre of power and fail to take it, you’re then facing the might of the enemy, on his “home” turf, as it were, like trying to take a castle and finding yourself surrounded by its defenders. Dublin hit back hard at the rebels, sending overwhelming forces to the intended assembly points, arresting the leaders before they even had a chance to lead, and putting the fear of God into the Irish, so that those who could quickly dispersed, even throwing their weapons in the rivers so as not to be arrested.

In essence, the rising was over before it got a chance to start.

Or was it?

Dublin rose as planned, and fighting was fierce, spreading quickly throughout Leinster, with the heaviest fighting (and losses) taking place in Kildare, Meath and Carlow. One of the major turning points of the short-lived rising though was southeast of Dublin, in the county of Wexford. For whatever reason, this smaller county had not been seen as significant by the British, and so they were more than surprised when not only did it rise, but produced the most successful battles of the rebellion, one of which has gone down in Irish folklore.

After the capture and torture of Anthony Perry, a senior United Irishman, other leaders were arrested and executed. With this news, and the intelligence of further atrocities committed in nearby Wicklow, the United Irishmen attacked, their first major engagement something less than a battle, as forty rebels faced twenty militia at the village of The Harrow, killing their commanding officer and putting the rest to flight. The official report:

“On arrival in Ferns, Lieut. Smith and a party was ordered towards Scarawalsh, where the murders were committed, to see if this information was true, and Lieut. Bookey with another Party rode towards the Harrow, where he met a large party of Insurgents armed with Pikes and some Arms. The Lieut. rode before the Party, and ordered the rebels to surrender, and deliver up their Arms, on which they discharged a volley at the Party, accompanied with a shower of stones, some of which brought Lieut. Bookey from his horse, as also John Donovan, a private in the Corps. The party after firing a few shots, finding themselves overpowered by the Rebels, retreated to Ferns, where they remained ‘till day break, melancholy spectators of the devastation committed by the Rebels. The information of the Murders at Scarawalsh found to be true.”

The next major engagement was at Oulart Hill, where this time the odds were very firmly again on the side of the Irish, but much more so: about 110 militia faced over 4,000 angry Irishmen. There could only be one outcome. Finding the massive force of their enemy occupying the high ground and, perhaps proving the English had learned little since the days of Andrew Moray and William Wallace, they advanced to meet them and were cut down almost to the last man. News of the great victory spread throughout the county, and soon rebel forces controlled Enniscorthy, Gorey and Wexford Town itself. Finding his troops penned in at Wexford, the commander of the fort at Duncannon, General Fawcett, led 200 men to bolster the garrison there. Heavy artillery was to follow.

Duped into thinking the road ahead was safe, the slower force bringing the big guns was attacked in an ambush at the Three Rocks, in Forth Mountain, and all but wiped out. Their guns were seized, now in the hands of the rebels, and the survivors left to rendezvous with Fawcett, who realised his guns were now likely to be used against him, and headed back to the fort, leaving Wexford’s commander, General Maxwell, to come out hunting for him, and also run into an ambush from which he barely escaped. Finally realising how desperate his situation had become, Maxwell sued for peace while in reality using the sending of the envoys as a chance to have his men slip away quietly, and like true English bastards they took thier revenge on the locals, burning, raping and murdering as they made their way to Duncannon.

However, the rebels had achieved an astonishing victory, much more than those in the capital had managed, and the county of Wexford was almost entirely in rebel hands.

Firmly established now, the Irish set up a French-inspired Committee of Public Safety, and divided their forces, half to head to Dublin and half to New Ross. The latter encountered stiff resistance and were soundly defeated at the Battle of New Ross, despite outnumbering the English about five to one. But they had cannon, and the Irish were mostly just armed with pikes, not to mention that the attack had been anticipated and prepared for, the defences around the city strengthened and ready to withstand any attack. Despite the attempts of the Irish leader, Bagenal Harvey, to negotiate the town’s surrender, his emissary was shot down under a flag of truce, and the enraged Irish charged. Perhaps this was intended, a ruse to make them lose their heads and throw caution to the wind. If so, it worked.

In true Irish fashion, the rebels drove a herd of cattle through the gates, and when the British cavalry charged they were driven back. Fierce and savage street-fighting ensued, in which the rebels took heavy losses but managed to secure most of the town. Unfortunately, their lack of ammunition proved their undoing, and when reinforcements arrived they had nothing to face them with other than pikes. After a pitched battle they were finally driven out of New Ross and the British re-assumed control of it.

And then the massacres began.

I’m of course Irish, so will generally side with my historic countrymen, and lord knows the English had a reputation, well deserved, for brutality and inhuman treatment of prisoners, but it would be unfair and revisionist to ignore the part played by the Irish in the slaughter that followed. I’m not going to attempt to excuse or explain it, as I don’t think there’s ever any excuse for what is without question cold-blooded murder (well, hot-blooded, but you know what I mean). I think the belief that one side is always a) right and b) honourable in any war or conflict is a fallacy; we all have it in us to be brutal, or to quote Nick Cave, people ain’t no good. Perhaps to take that further, the wisdom of those merry minstrels, Slipknot, might suffice: people=shit. Everyone likes to think they would never do that, never could do that, but for every Nazi prisoner tortured or every American soldier mistreated by the Japanese you can bet there are equal atrocities committed on the other side. Nobody is immune to the madness of war, and good guys do not necessarily wear white, or indeed, black.

Or in this case, green.

In the town of New Ross, days of murder ensued, with both captured and trapped rebels and ordinary citizens - some of whom were Protestant - killed. Many burned alive. In fact it was said that more rebels were killed after the battle than during it. In retaliation, Scullabogue happened.

A small farm and outbuilding outside of the town, Scullabogue had been used by the rebels as a staging post, and all those believed to be enemies or potential spies rounded up and locked in a barn there. These included women, and indeed children. When news of the defeat at New Ross was brought by those escaping the battle, passions were inflamed, and thoughts of revenge bubbled over into violence. Although the guards drove the rebels back twice (Irishmen fighting Irishmen, how odd ) they eventually bowed to pressure and allowed some of the prisoners to be shot, however that wasn’t enough and the barn was torched, those trying to flee shot, stabbed, beaten to death or forced back into the flames. All but two of the prisoners perished. The event horrified General Thomas Cloney, who reported “The wretches who burned Scullabogue Barn did not at least profane the sacred name of justice by alleging that they were offering her a propitiatory sacrifice. The highly criminal and atrocious immolation of the victims at Scullabogue was, by no means, premeditated by the guard left in charge of the prisoners; it was excited and promoted by the cowardly ruffians who ran away from the Ross battle, and conveyed the intelligence (which was too true) that several wounded men had been burned in a house in Ross by the military.”

With New Ross now again in English hands, General John Moore marched to meet the rebels who had escaped, with a force of about 1,500 men, intending to join up with the maniacal Lake and his contingent and trap the Irish in a pincer movement. Lake was delayed though and so Moore took on the rebel force at Foulkesmill by himself. Though facing nearly four times his own number, and though the Irish had the high ground, Moore rallied his men as they attempted to break in panic, and, reformed and resolute, they charged the Irish positions, raining cannon fire down on them and driving them off. This action served to reopen the road to Wexford, which had been in rebel hands since the city had fallen.

Spectacularly bad luck and poor planning attended the Battle of Bunclody, where rebels forced their way with captured artillery into the small garrison town, forcing the retreat of the British, leaving some few Yeos trapped there. As the Irish celebrated, the garrison turned back around and launched a surprise attack against the town, which the rebels had failed to fortify (probably too drunk) and thus they were driven out and the battle lost.

The Battle of Arklow followed, as the Irish tried to spread the rebellion beyond Wexford, but were repulsed by Francis Needham, 1st Earl of Kilmorey, though they did manage to destroy one of the British cannon with captured guns. Their exultation was short-lived though, as Needham’s artillery replied forcefully, and the rebels fell back. Attempts to pursue and kill them largely failed though, and by the time they melted away into the night they were unaware that Needham’s garrison were almost out of ammunition, as were they.

The end was looming for the rebels, but before they were defeated they again took loyalist prisoners, this time bringing them to Wexford Bridge where they were piked to death, and their bodies thrown into the river. A massive force of nearly 18,000 British soldiers poured into Wexford under the command of the dreaded General Lake, and the United Irishmen gathered to meet them and make their last stand at Vinegar Hill. It was indeed to leave a sour taste in Irish mouths, as it was the turning point, and the end, of the rebellion in Wexford.

With few firearms and most only bearing pikes, and with women and children sheltering with them, the Irishmen had no chance against the well-drilled, efficient and deadly British Army, furnished with all the latest weapons and the know-how to use them, as well as artillery which could bombard the Irish from a distance. Each time they were hit the Irish would retreat into an ever-tightening circle as the British moved their artillery closer and continued to shell them. Things were desperate. Meanwhile, in Enniscorthy, just down the road, the defenders were doing much better, pushing back General Johnson’s light infantry division and holding the town. However when Johnson brought in heavy cavalry they could not stand, and were eventually driven out, though they managed to hold the strategically important Slaney Bridge.

As the rebels on Vinegar Hill were routed, more atrocities ensued, wounded being burned to death, women raped, the usual horror brought about by the victors in any battle if they’re fired up enough and there’s sufficient hatred for the enemy. Driven out of Wexford, the survivors spread beyond the county to carry on what remained of the rising in guerilla raids.

[Trollheart]

And over the border…

Although Ulster’s fighting capabilities had been hobbled, even decapitated by Lake’s marauding forces prior to the start of the rising, Henry Joy McCracken and Jemmy Hope remained at large and Antrim, focus of all the unrest even when the majority of the country had been at peace, exploded as a centre of the rebellion. Having taken control of the United Irishmen as their Ulster leaders dithered, waiting for help from France, McCracken led the rising, intending to take the government outposts in the county and then move on Antrim Town itself. Then, using artillery captured from Antrim Town, he would lead the rebels in a march to Belfast, in conjunction with the rebels from County Down.

Things went to plan initially, with Larne, Ballymena, Portadown and Randalstown all captured, but on the march to Antrim Town old enmities resurfaced between the Presbyterians and the Catholic Defenders, and many deserted, leaving McCracken with a much smaller force than he had envisaged taking the town with. The resultant delay gave the garrison time to request reinforcements from Belfast, and though again they were outnumbered (only about 200) they also possessed the artillery which eventually proved the rebels’ undoing. Overall they did quite well, and were pushing the British back, but the arrival of a barrage of shells from the newly-arrived reinforcements from Belfast took them by surprise and demoralised them, causing many more to desert and flee. In the face of now overwhelming odds, McCracken and Hope had no choice but to follow them.

In County Down, meanwhile, a force of 1,000 rebels attacked the house of the McKee family, known to be British informers and sympathisers, burned the place to the ground and killed everyone. In response the British sent a somewhat inadequate force of about 300 men to meet them, straight into an ambush. Rather interestingly, where the rudimentary weapons of the rebels had proved a hindrance to them in previous battles, at the Battle of Saintfield, as this skirmish was known, the British (at least, these ones) seemed unfamiliar with the pike, and were not trained to fight against such weapons, being more comfortable shooting muskets and firing artillery, and using swords. Though the artillery was used, to decent effect, all it managed to do was buy the British time to escape.

The next battle though would be a real one, and crucial.

The Battle of Ballynahinch was doomed from the outset. Commanded by a man who had no military training at all, Henry Munro, who had only taken over control of the rebels when their true leader was arrested, and who refused to attack under cover of night because he believed it dishonourable (!), the United Irishmen were pounded into submission by British artillery - those who didn’t slink off at the naivete of their commander, that is. The next morning, Munro’s reticence proved fatal as the British attacked again, this time driving the Irish into full retreat, which they happily turned into a slaughter.

Betsy Gray, of whom we have spoken already, was killed at the Battle of Ballynahinch, and Munro, having trusted - and paid - a local farmer to hide him, was betrayed and then for good effect hanged outside his own house.

For the first and only time in Irish history Catholics and other dissenters had banded together against a common enemy, but the failure of the rebellion, coupled with lingering distrust on both sides which could not be banished, and fanned by the atrocities committed on both sides, meant it would be the last. From here on, Catholics would ply their own path against the repressive British Protestant government, and would receive no further help from Presbyterians or other dissenters.

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY, UNION, After several unsuccessful attempts, behold at last Frenchmen arrived amongst you… Union, Liberty, the Irish Republic! Such is our shout. Let us march. Our hearts are devoted to you; our glory is in your happiness. - General Jean Humbert, August 1978, on landing in Killala.

As Lake was replaced by Lord Cornwallis as commander of Ireland, the long-awaited French help finally arrived. Way too late. Landing at Killala Bay in County Mayo, General Humbert, who had also commanded the ill-fated 1796 attempt at landing in Bantry Bay, brought 3,000 men ashore and was met by Lake, who engaged them at the Battle of Castlebar (not surprisingly, at Castlebar). News of the French landing had given hope to the mostly-beaten United Irishmen, and those who could made their way to Mayo to support the invasion, hoping for a resurgence of the crushed rising. As Humbert and his Irish allies marched towards the town of Castlebar, the British, believing the invaders had only one way to approach, trained their guns on the main Ballina Road. But locals had advised Humbert of an alternative route, and though the British believed it impassable, the rebel force negotiated it and took them by surprise with their guns facing the other way.

The British forces, many of them Yeomanry, used to fighting ill-disciplined and untrained Irish rebels with little idea of tactics or strategy, were outmanoeuvred and unnerved by the French, who knew how to fight a campaign and how to take a town. When Humbert launched a ferocious bayonet charge the gunners panicked and ran, some of the British even defecting to the joint Irish/French side and fighting alongside them. The British are said to have run so fast and so far - although hardly even pursued - that the event became known in Ireland as “The Castlebar Races”. Having thoroughly routed the foe, the Irish rebels declared the Republic of Connaught, a self-contained client state of the French Republic, but like the Republic of Wexford, it would not last long.

Twelve days, in fact. On September 8, a huge force of 10,000 under Cornwallis met Humbert at Ballinamuck (no, really) and this time the superior numbers told. Cornwallis had about 26,000 men to the combined Irish and French strength of just over 2,000, and having crossed the Shannon in the hopes of joining up with rumoured pockets of resistance having sprung up again in Westmeath and Longford - these minor rebellions quickly crushed - Humbert decided to make his stand at Ballinamuck. Lake was closing in behind him, and he knew he was in a desperate situation.

Though there was a force of 3,000 waiting at sea to land once he had achieved his objective, Humbert had come to Ireland on the strength of intelligence that said the country was in revolt, and that the Irish would join him in freeing the country. By the time he had arrived of course, the rising was all but over, and the Irish defeated and on the run, so he was more or less fighting a rearguard action instead of spearheading an invasion. Realising his cause was now doomed, Humbert surrendered after a short fight, and the proposed invasion by France of Ireland, like the Irish rising, was over.

[Trollheart]

Before I close out what has turned out to be a much longer article than expected, there is one further aspect of the 1798 rising I want to investigate. I think it may very well be a unique one.

Holy Warriors: Ireland’s Rebel Battle Priests

I know English lords were often made bishops and archbishops and led armies, and of course the Pope and his various cardinals too, but more back in the early part of the millennium; however I have never, up to this, heard of bog (almost literally) standard priests not only fighting but leading men into battle, and yet when I look at the list of commanders of the rebels it’s littered with Father this and Father that. So I’d like now to look at these, and see what led to such men of the cloth taking up arms and standing up for their country, actually fighting alongside the men of their flock rather than just praying for them. Most, of course, would also die in Ireland’s cause for freedom.

Father John Murphy (1753 - 1798)

Perhaps the most famous of the “rebel priests”, his name preserved in the old Irish ballad “Boolavogue”, Fr. Murphy was a native of Ferns parish in Wexford, from where almost all of the priests who took part in the rebellion would come. Like all Catholic priests at the time, he was subject to the Penal Laws holding sway in Ireland, which forbade priests studying or being trained there, seminaries outlawed, and so he had completed his education in Spain.

Returning to Ireland in 1785 he was given the curacy of Kilcomuc, more usually known as Boolavogue, under the parish priesthood of Fr. Patrick Cogley. Fr. Murphy’s family was already involved with the United Irishmen, two of his brothers being in the society, but his bishop, James Caulfield, was a supporter of the Crown and against the idea of rebellion. Nonetheless, Murphy preached from the pulpit to his congregation that they were "better to die courageously in the fields than be butchered in their houses.” He was not exaggerating, as General Lake’s Yeomen swept through Leinster, killing, raping and burning as they went.

As Catholics, and not just Catholics but the leaders of the religion, the priests had a double dilemma on their hands. First, the obvious one: a priest was expected to be peaceful and promote the cause of peace and brotherhood and harmony (though this is hard to do when the enemy is slaughtering and burning all around you, and seems determined to wipe you out) and not supposed to take part in any sort of armed conflict. Secondly, and perhaps more worryingly for them, the Irish rebellion was founded on the notion, hope or promise of support from France. Since the Revolution, the leaders of France’s new republic were staunchly anti-religion, especially anti-Catholic, so if the French were to invade and “save” Ireland, where would the role of the priests be? Might not even those who had fought for the very freedom they would now have attained find themselves exiled, or worse - guests of Madame la Guillotine?

Nevertheless, they fought, and while he wavered between loyalty, both to his bishop and the English king, news of the massacre at Dunlavin and the insistence of his parishioners that he protect them and fight for Ireland made Fr. Murphy’s mind up, and he led an attack at the Harrow, killing two British officers and routing the small force. This led to the burning of many houses in his parish, including his own church at Boolavogue. Murphy’s small victory and subsequent success at Oulart Hill are immortalised in the ballad of the same name:

Then Father Murphy, from old Kilcormack,
Spurred up the rocks with a warning cry;
“Arm! Arm!” he cried, “For I’ve come to lead you,
For Ireland’s freedom we fight or die.”
He led us on against the coming soldiers,
And the cowardly Yeomen we put to flight;
'Twas at the Harrow the boys of Wexford
Showed Booky’s Regiment how men could fight.”

(Booky refers to Lieutenant Thomas Bookey, one of the two officers of the Camolin Cavalry killed at The Harrow)

Fr. Murphy’s defeat and death at Vinegar Hill is also commemorated in the song.

“At Vinegar Hill, o’er the pleasant Slaney,
Our heroes vainly stood back to back,
And the Yeos at Tullow took Father Murphy
And burned his body upon the rack.
God grant you glory, brave Father Murphy
And open heaven to all your men;
The cause that called you may call tomorro
In another fight for the Green again.”

Murphy did indeed win a major victory at Oulart Hill, as already described, all but wiping out Lieutenant Foote’s command. As they marched to take Enniscorthy, Murphy’s regiment was reinforced by one led by another priest, and indeed another Murphy, Father Michael. They forced the retreat of the garrison there, and marched in triumph on to Wexford town, which they also took, but as we have seen, were unable to keep, Here they were joined by another priest, Father Mogue Kearns as they later marched to Vinegar Hill, preparatory to attacking Gorey. This was, of course, to be their last stand.

On the run from the defeat at Vinegar Hill and the later Battle of Kilcumey Hill, Fr. Murphy and his friend and bodyguard James Gallagher were captured by British forces and taken to Tullow in County Carlow, where they were tried, found guilty of treason and executed. Their deaths were not quick and they were not merciful. Both men were stripped, flogged, half-hanged several times (Gallagher first, as he was exhorted to identify the priest with whom he travelled, but refused, dying on the gallows) and Father Murphy, as both a Catholic priest and therefore mortal enemy of the British, and a rebel, was decapitated after hanging, his body put into a barrel of tar and burned and his head stuck on a spike.

Father Philip Roche

Another priest from the Boolavogue parish, his brother was involved in the attack at The Harrow, and seems to have been less (or more) than the traditional image of a priest; big and burly, given to great tempers and able to fight with ferocity, and given to drinking, he seems - despite his vocation - to have been the kind of man who would respond quickly and eagerly to the call to defend Ireland, and indeed it appears that he joined the United Irishmen before the rebellion began, again much to the disgust and disapproval of his bishop. He seems to have had the equivalent of a problem holding down a job, being moved from Gorey to Bantry, finally ending up in Poulpeasty in Wexford. As soon as the rising began he deserted his post and joined in the fighting.

He took part in the battle for Enniscorthy and was at Vinegar Hill, and secured safe passage for one “Mrs. M”, declaring that her house and that of her neighbour were not to be touched, by his order. He used the power of faith to motivate his troops, giving them religious scapulars and telling the men that they would be under God’s protection by wearing them. He was given command of the rebels after the Battle of New Ross when Bagenal Harvey, the previous commander, resigned, apparently in disgust at the atrocities perpetrated by rebels at Scullabogue. Father Roche was given the rank of general. This did not go down well with the Protestants who had joined the rebels, unsurprisingly.

Father (now General) Roche sent word to the parish of Horeswood that if their parish priest there, one Father James Doyle, did not join them then Roche’s forces would attack the town. He appears to have been something of an uncompromising leader, and you have to wonder if he had missed his calling. Doyle had no choice but to comply, but kept the letter which he used in his trial later to attain acquittal for himself and his men. Roche, meanwhile, despite the misgivings of Thomas Clooney and other Protestants in the ranks, proved to be more than an able commander, proved in fact to be something of a military genius, holding off the British forces by a kind of Beau Geste subterfuge while his men escaped, and later, after the defeat at Vinegar Hill, as the other leaders considered suing for terms to surrender Wexford Town, Roche would have no part of it.

His error though was to believe that General Lake would afford him favourable terms, or deal with him at all, and while Father John Murphy declared they should fight to the last - and every man agreed and stood with him - Roche travelled alone to Wexford. He was quickly disabused of his notions of a noble surrender and thoroughly abused as, entering the town he was recognised and pulled from his horse, kicked and beaten, dragged through the streets and finally imprisoned. When visited there by General Sir John Moore, he advised his adversary that his estimate of the numbers of the rebels was way off - Moore estimated about 5,000 to 6,000 but Roche told him there was three times that number, which there were.

Roche gained for himself in his lifetime as a rebel a reputation not only for battle cunning and planning but for mercy, often saving Protestants from the more vocal and violent factions of his own forces. This unfortunately did him no good when, after being tried and found guilty (duh) of treason, he, along with nine other rebels, was hanged at, and from, Wexford Bridge.

A strange dilemma shows itself in the above clemency shown by Father Roche, illustrated best in the example of the brothers Robinson who, taken by the rebels from their parish of Kilgeny for no other reason than that they were Protestants, and also both quite old and therefore both harmless and mostly unable to defend themselves, were rescued by Roche and given letters guaranteeing their safety. Sent home with these, they were later accused of collusion and treachery by the British for having accepted the pardon of the rebel general. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

[Trollheart]

Father Michael Murphy (1767 - 1798)

So far as I can make out, he was no relation to the previous Father John Murphy (although he had a brother named John) - Murphy has always been a very common name in Ireland, perhaps as common as Smith in England. Sent to complete his education in Bordeaux in France, Father Michael was trapped when the French Revolution broke out, and imprisoned until he and his fellow students could be repatriated to Ireland, all Catholic priests under an order of expulsion by the new republican government. Perhaps oddly, though treated with disdain by the French (and the president of his college having been guillotined) Murphy nevertheless espoused the revolutionary ideas of his erstwhile captors on his return to Ireland, and while lodging in a house owned by a member of the United Irishmen, became enamoured of their cause and joined up himself.

Although he does not appear to have been present at the incident at The Harrow, he did meet up with Father John Murphy and the rest of the rebels that morning and marched with them to Oulart and then on to Gorey after their success there, leaving his namesake to head to Vinegar Hill. He later found that the house of his old landlord, John Kenny, had been burned, along with others in the village, by the Yeos, and Kenny himself shot. He encountered the forces of Colonel Walpole at Carraig Rua (Red Rock) and dealt them a terrific defeat, leading to the death of the colonel himself. After taking Gorey Town, Father Michael was among those who were - every one - opposed to Father Philip Roche’s intention to seek surrender terms from Lake in Wexford Town. Well, we’ve read how that turned out, haven’t we?

Father Murphy then launched an attack on Arklow, and was killed while leading the charge. After his forces had been utterly defeated, his body was thrown headless into a burning house, General Lord Norris remarking caustically that his body might as well go where his soul had already gone. His intact head and the remains of his body were later recovered by his sister and interred in the family plot.

Father Mogue Kearns (d. 1798)

One thing that seems common to all these “rebel priests” or “warrior priests” or “battle priests”, or whatever you want to call them - and it’s hardly surprising - is that they were all big, bluff strong men. Makes sense really: the kind of man, even priest, likely to take up arms in defence of his country was hardly going to be a local weed. Fighting men, strong men, men quick to anger and essentially it appears all men who could be described as “bears”, but obviously intelligent too (stupid men did not make it through basic training in the Church), and with a strong sense of pride and loyalty to Ireland.

Kearns was also sent to France for his education and got caught up in the French Revolution - literally in his case. Attacked by supporters of Robespierre he was actually hanged from a lamppost, but the story goes that his body was so big, heavy and powerful that it actually bent the lamppost, making it sag towards the ground and so placing his feet back on the ground. When an Irish physician saw what had happened, he had him cut down and resuscitated.

So Mogue Kearns had already had a brush with death in the cause of a revolution, albeit on the wrong side of the conflict, before he returned to Ireland and joined the United Irishmen.

While serving as a curate in the parish of Balyna, he attempted to rouse the people and have them take to the field in defence of Ireland, but his parish priest dissuaded them, had Kearns dismissed and he returned to Wexford, where he took up residence in Enniscorthy. Another trait common among some, but not all, of the rebel priests, Mogue Kearns was a hard drinker and got into many fights. After Enniscorthy was captured by the rebels he sat on the committee alongside Fathers Philip Roche and John Murphy, presiding over some of the meetings. He was renowned for his bravery, going into battle often armed only with a heavy riding whip, however this hot-headedness and impulsive behaviour was to have tragic consequences for him.

During the Battle of Bunclody he rejected advice from one of his commanders, who believed they should send a detachment to secure the Carlow Road and so cut off a possible retreat by the garrison holding the town, sneering “Tell all those you have any control over to fear nothing as long as they see this whip in my hand!” As his subordinate had warned, the garrison, retreating from the attack, ran into another force coming to strengthen them, and the two then turned to face the surprised rebels, driving them out of the town. They lost over a hundred men in the rout, in addition to losing the town. Morale took a dive.

While Father John Murphy took his men to Vinegar Hill and eventual defeat, Kearns went to Enniscorthy, where, when the commander was wounded he had to take over, but receiving a severe arm wound was forced to withdraw, carried by his men as they made their way back towards Wexford. Left to recuperate at the house of a friend he returned three weeks later, though his arm had far from healed, leading a contingent of men. Saying he would rather die on his feet with a weapon in his hand than be taken cowering in a house, he rejoined the fight, and after taking part in many skirmishes he was apprehended in Edenderry and hanged.

Father Thomas Clinch

A man with rebellion in his bloodline, Father Thomas’s grandfather had fought at the Battle of the Boyne, so the hatred of the English was strong there, as if their repression of Catholics had not been enough. Yet another boisterous drunkard, Father Thomas was pretty much a priest in name only, having been dismissed from his pastoral duties by the bishop after serving in several different towns. He joined the rising and, like many of the other priests who fought with the rebels, he had brothers in the United Irishmen too, though whether they were also priests I don’t know. He certainly distinguished himself in battle, stories of his riding a large white horse and leading troops into battle common.

He too seemed to have some sympathy for Protestant civilians, and guaranteed safe harbour for Mrs. Heydon, who took refuge in the house of the postmaster of Enniscorthy, Henry Gill. She was the wife of the Reverend Heydon, the harmless Protestant vicar who was killed by rebels as already discussed, and the Catholics did not trust her, but his brother having been a tenant of the late Reverend’s wife, Father Thomas vouched for her and demanded she be treated kindly. He was another who died at Vinegar Hill, or slightly beyond it, having been keeping a rearguard action so as to secure the escape of as many of the routed rebels as possible.

He engaged in a duel with Lord Roden, commander of the troop known as the “Foxhunters”. Roden had spotted his conspicuous white horse and his massive figure - both of which were hard to miss - and rode after him, receiving a wound in his neck but being saved by one of his own men who came up from behind and shot Father Thomas, who fell from his horse. His men carried him away but he died on the way to Enniscorthy.

Father John Redmond

His story was markedly different to his brother priests, in that the parish of which he was curate was overseen by a man who was generally seen as one of the most liberal of landlords, the Earl of Mount Norris, who was so tolerant of Catholics that he even dined with the priests, and assured the Lord Viceroy of Wexford’s peaceful nature. Like the earl, Father John was completely at odds with the other rebel priests, even going so far as to refuse the sacrament of Holy Communion to anyone in the United Irishmen, or hear their Confession. Given that he lived under such an agreeable landlord, you can understand that. Again, unlike the other priests, whom we’ve seen were almost all rowdy, prone to fighting and fond of drink - and usually censured by the bishop - there was nothing but praise for Father John, a model priest.

So how did he become a rebel? Let’s find out.

Universally despised by the other priests who had joined the rebellion, he was, due to his devotion to Mount Norris, seen as a loyalist, and was in fact called “the Orange Priest”, surely the greatest slur you could aim at a Catholic priest (and not a very nice thing any Orangeman would like to hear either!) and he was constantly in fear of his life during the rising, seen as a traitor by his own people. When the house at Camolin Park was raided for weapons by the rebels, he pleaded with them not to destroy it, and managed to convince them to leave it standing. All for nothing though. When the earl heard word that Father Redmond had been present at the raid he concluded that the priest was in on it, and ordered him to report to him in Gorey to explain himself. When Redmond obeyed, he was seized as he entered the town, kicked and punched and dragged along the ground, and thrown in jail. He must have wished he had rebelled like all the other priests!

While he was languishing in prison, a troop of Yeos who had been in the defeat at Ballyellis rushed the jail, dragged him out, held a quick mock trial and sentenced him to be hanged as a traitor, which was carried out summarily. His one-time benefactor, Mount Norris, believing (without a shred of evidence, but who needed that?) that he faced a traitor, shot Redmond as he hung on the gibbet. Perhaps, in the aftermath of the rising, it might have seemed to the earl prudent to distance himself from these Catholics of whom he had once been such a friend, lest he be seen as a traitor himself.

[Trollheart]

Epilogue: One nation, indivisible, under an English God - The Act of Union

The rising of 1798 probably marks the only time Catholics and Protestants would join common cause; after its failure Protestants would look to not only the atrocities perpetrated by the “papists” (ignoring of course those carried out on their own side, and vice versa) and see the often treacherous behaviour of Catholics as proving they could not be trusted. From here on in, the word sectarian would be forever engraved into the long and bloody history of Ireland, culminating in the rather bland-sounding Troubles, which would last well into the second half of the twentieth century and ensure Ireland was, and remains to this day, deeply divided along lines of religion and belief.

In the wake of the Rebellion, and with support growing for Catholic emancipation, to say nothing of the renewed fear of further invasion from France, William Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Britain, decided that military suppression alone was never going to quell the tensions in Ireland, and to that effect he proposed the Act of Union, which would unite the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland, and merge the Irish Parliament with the British one. This measure met, not surprisingly, with stiff resistance from the Irish Parliament (almost all of whom were, after all, Protestants and had no interest in equal rights for Catholics and worried their own power would diminish) but a combination of bribes, coercion and promises allowed the Act to scrape through on a 158 - 115 vote when brought before the House again in 1800. On January 1 1801 it became law, and the Irish Parliament was abolished.

What this meant for Ireland we will see in the next chapter, but one thing was certain: while the cause of Irish independence may have been defeated it was not dead, and would rise again only a few years into the new century to threaten the British establishment again, even though it would take another century and more before we would finally be free. Before that, Ireland would be devastated by a harrowing famine that would rob her of the flower of her youth, either to death or emigration, an even greater divide would develop between north and south - a divide which would never really be healed - and, against all expectations, Irishmen would serve the king as the entire world burned under the threat of a new horror: not just a war, but a world war.