Speech of O’More.
There have been many occasions in Irish history when the Government has lacked power either to put down its enemies or to protect its friends. The gentry of the Pale would hardly have joined the rebels on account of such an affair as Julianstown, but they had grievances, and the Irish managers pressed them both with arguments and threats. As governor of Meath, Lord Gormanston called upon the sheriff to summon a county meeting, which was held upon Crofty Hill, about three miles to the south of Drogheda. It had been previously arranged that a deputation from the Ulster Irish should appear there, and in due time O’More with Philip MacHugh O’Reilly, Hugh O’Byrne and others rode up ‘in the head of a guard of musketeers, whom the defeat at the bridge of Julianstown had furnished with arms of that kind.’ Gormanston, who was supported by the Earl of Fingall and five other peers, acted as spokesman and asked the newcomers why they came armed into the Pale. In a prepared speech O’More answered that they had been goaded into action by penal laws which excluded them from the public service, and from educational advantages. ‘There can,’ he said, ‘be no greater mark of servitude than that our children cannot come to speak Latin without renouncing their spiritual dependence on the Roman Church, nor ourselves be preferred to any advantageous employment, without forfeiting our souls.’ The Lords Justices, he added, had refused parliamentary redress, lest they should be prevented from extirpating Catholicism with the help of a Scotch army. To crown all, they had branded the Ulster chiefs as rebels, whereas one of their greatest motives had been to vindicate the royal prerogative from encroachment ‘by the malignant party of the Parliament of England.’ In conclusion, he called upon the gentry of the Pale to join the party whose interest and sufferings were the same as their own. When the applause subsided, Gormanston asked the Ulstermen whether their loyalty was genuine. The answer was of course affirmative, and he then invited those around him to make common cause with the Irish. ‘And thus,’ philosophises Bellings, ‘distrust, aversion, force, and fear united the two parties which since the conquest had at all times been most opposite, and it being first publicly declared that they would repute all such enemies as did not assist them in their ways, they appointed a second meeting of the country at the hill of Tara.’[300]
Meeting at Tara, Dec. 7, 1641.
The lords of the Pale refuse to go to Dublin.
Sir Phelim O’Neill’s manœuvres.
The die was now cast, and a summons from the Lords Justices calling the chief men of the Pale to a conference at Dublin came too late. The meeting at Tara took place on December 7, and an answer was then returned signed by seven peers to the effect that they were afraid to put themselves into the power of the Government, and thought it safer to stand on their guard. They had, they said, been informed that Sir Charles Coote had spoken words at the Council table, ‘tending to a purpose and resolution to execute upon those of our religion a general massacre.’ The Lords Justices answered that they had never heard Coote say anything of the kind, and that anyone who made any such suggestion should be severely punished; and they again summoned the lords of the Pale to be at Dublin on the 17th. Ormonde personally gave his word of honour that they should return safely, and urged them not to lose this last opportunity of showing their loyalty. But they had gone too far to draw back, their tenants and dependents had gone still further, and Sir Phelim O’Neill persuaded them, as they were ready to believe, that he had great resources. He arranged a sham powder factory, and so acted his part as to make them think he could turn out an unlimited supply. The story reads like fiction, but Bellings records it in sober earnest, and he must have known. O’Neill had no military experience or capacity, but his confidence imposed upon the hesitating men of the Pale, who not only gave him chief command in the attack on Drogheda, but also a sort of commission as governor of Meath.[301]
The despoiled Protestants flock into Drogheda.
Wretched state of the refugees.
Sir Faithful Fortescue leaves Drogheda in the lurch. Lord Moore.
Tichborne reaches Drogheda, Nov. 4.