As a result of this unfortunate venture, Wolfe Tone quit the country at the pleasure of the authorities, and went to America. Ultimately he returned to France, where he again carried on his conspiracy, occupying himself in luring Irishmen from among the prisoners at Brest to enlist in the French service. This procedure was accomplished by “sending the poor fellows large quantities of wine and cognac, a fiddle, and some filles Francaises;” and, when Pat’s heart was soft with love and warm with passion, Tone induced him to sign on in the service which had adopted him.
It is difficult to characterize a man of Wolfe Tone’s kind. Rash and criminal though he was, it is hard to condemn him altogether. He hated England cordially; but he was not alone among Irishmen in that. Indeed, he said: “I like the French, with all their faults and with the guillotine at their head, a thousand times better than I like the English.”
Whiddy Island, which lies just off the town of Bantry, was a former stronghold of the O’Sullivans of Bere; and an imposing castled ruin tells of the times when violence, even in such a spot as this, had to be met by repression. Bantry lies in a hollow at the head of the bay. The whole bay affords a succession of prospects magnificent and grand. Its views vary from the softness of a landscape nocturne to the rugged splendour of a realistic impression. Weak as are these similes, they can only mark the sense of contrast which the scene awakens. Bantry is in its way an active little place, and, like Castletown, rejoices in a series of sign-boards to which the prefix “O” is all but universal. Its tiny port is busy; and its people are apparently imbued with an industry not always to be noted in these parts.
Near Castletown-Bere is Dunboy Castle, two miles away along a road which in summer is hedgerowed with honeysuckle and clematis, ferns and lichen-covered rocks. The present castle of Dunboy is modern, and is therefore less appealing than the older fabric, which so successfully defended itself against Sir George Carew. The story of the chiefs of Dunboy is familiar in outline to most; but the story of its famous siege, when MacGeoghegan fought Dunboy against Carew and his interesting army of four thousand men, has often been overlooked in favour of more theatrically magnificent performances.
Why this should be so, it is hard to realize. History has recorded with fidelity and minutely many of its incidents, and, in “The Two Chiefs of Dunboy,” it has inspired an historical romance of the first rank.
When Donal took his last farewell of his once proud home, it had become a smoking, blood-clotted ruin.
“The halls where mirth and minstrelsy
Than Beara’s wind rose louder,
Were flung in masses lonelily,
And black with English powder.”
The tragic story of the siege is thus condensed: The garrison consisted of only 143 chosen fighting men, who had but a few small cannons; while the comparatively large army which assailed them was well supplied with artillery and all the means of attack. At length, on the 17th of June, when the castle had been nearly shot to pieces, the garrison offered to surrender if allowed to depart with their arms; but their messenger was immediately hanged, and the order for the assault given.
Although the proportion of the assailants in point of numbers was overwhelming, the storming party were resisted with the most desperate bravery. From turret to turret, and in every part of the crumbling ruins, the struggle was successively maintained throughout the livelong day. Thirty of the gallant defenders attempted to escape by swimming; but the soldiers, who had been posted in boats, killed them in the water; and, at length, the surviving portion of the garrison retreated into a cellar, to which the only access was by a narrow, winding flight of stone steps. Their leader, MacGeoghegan, being mortally wounded, the command was given to Thomas Taylor, the son of an Englishman, and the intimate friend of Captain Tyrell, to whose niece he was married.
Nine barrels of gunpowder were stowed away in the cellar; and Taylor declared that he would blow up all that remained of the castle, burying himself and his companions, with their enemies, in the ruins, unless they received a promise of life. This was refused by the savage Carew, who, placing a guard upon the entrance to the cellar, as it was then after sunset, returned to the work of slaughter next morning. Cannon-balls were discharged among the Irish in their last dark retreat; and Taylor was forced by his companions to surrender unconditionally. When, however, some of the English descended into the cellar, they found the wounded MacGeoghegan, with a lighted torch in his hand, staggering to throw it into the gunpowder. Captain Power thereupon seized him by the arms, and the others despatched him with their swords. Fifty-eight of those who had surrendered were hanged that day in the English camp, and others a few days after; so that not one of the 143 heroic defenders of Dunboy survived. On the 22d of June the remains of the castle were blown up by Carew with the gunpowder of the besieged.