Maguire and Macmahon taken.
O’More and others escape.
The Lords of the Pale.
They are supplied with arms.
Arms sent to the Ulster Scots.
Of the conspirators, only two of any importance were taken—Macmahon at his lodgings, and Lord Maguire in a cockloft where he had hidden himself. Maguire denied everything, but he was confuted by Macmahon’s confession, and arms were discovered in his rooms. Macmahon, whose information was mainly from Ulster, declared the conspiracy to be universal, and believed, or professed to believe, that every garrison in Ireland would be surprised on the same day. ‘I am now in your hands,’ he said; ‘use me as you will; I am sure I shall be shortly revenged.’ They were both hanged in London, Maguire being a commoner in England. The point had been settled long ago in Lord Leonard Grey’s case, who was Viscount Grane in Ireland. Sir William Coles’ letter was now remembered, and there were other causes for alarm. The ease with which O’More, Plunket, Fox, and O’Byrne escaped showed that they had many confederates. Horsemen flocked into the suburbs, and Colonel Barry’s four hundred men in a ship on the river gave great uneasiness. Barry had rather suspiciously disappeared on the night of the 22nd, and the soldiers, who were not allowed to communicate with the shore, were nearly starved, and when landed were not permitted to enter the town. It was thought prudent to adjourn the Council from Chichester House to the Castle, and when the number of suitors increased, to Cork House, over the way. The Lords Justices could only hope that the Pale was not so seriously tainted, and on Sunday and Monday they were visited by the Earls of Kildare and Fingall, and by Lords Gormanston, Netterville, Fitzwilliam, Howth, Dunsany, and Slane, all of whom professed loyalty and declared that they now heard of the conspiracy for the first time. Whether this was true in all cases may be doubted, but they agreed in asking for arms. The Lords Justices hesitated about parting with their weapons, but thought it better to give a certain number, ‘lest they should conceive we apprehended any jealousy of them.’ Many of these arms were used against the Government, and St. Leger thought they ought not to have been given; while the Lords Justices were blamed by others for not dealing them out more liberally. Enough were given for seventeen hundred men in the counties of Dublin, Kildare, Louth, Meath, and Westmeath, and, considering that they were entrusted to private persons of doubtful loyalty, this seems to have been a fair allowance. Arms for four hundred men were also sent to the Scots of Down and Antrim, and these at least were not wasted. There was a great fleet of Scotch fishing boats in the bay, and five hundred men volunteered to land and be armed for the service of the State. The offer was accepted, but never acted on, for the fishermen were seized with a panic, put to sea, and never reappeared until the next year. The fugitives from Ulster soon began to pour into Dublin. Temple is open to criticism for his account of what happened in the northern province, but this is what he saw himself:
What Temple saw in Dublin.
‘Many persons of good rank and quality, covered over with old rags, and some without any other covering than a little to hide their nakedness, some reverend ministers and others that had escaped with their lives sorely wounded. Wives came bitterly lamenting the murders of their husbands; mothers of their children, barbarously destroyed before their faces; poor infants ready to perish and pour out their souls in their mothers’ bosoms; some over-wearied with long travel, and so surbated, as they came creeping on their knees; others frozen up with cold, ready to give up the ghost in the streets; others overwhelmed with grief, distracted with their losses, lost also their senses.... But those of better quality, who could not frame themselves to be common beggars, crept into private places; and some of them, that had not private friends to relieve them, even wasted silently away, and so died without noise.... The greatest part of the women and children thus barbarously expelled out of their habitations perished in the city of Dublin; and so great numbers of them were brought to their graves, as all the churchyards within the whole town were of too narrow a compass to contain them.’ Two large additional burial grounds were set apart.[277]
An amended proclamation, Oct. 29.
The Very Rev. Henry Jones.