Kilgorman: A Story of Ireland in 1798 - Talbot Baines Reed

Kit and Biddy McQuilkin were quickly brought by me to more comfortable quarters in Knockowen, and where they were more likely to have better protection. Captain Felton, on my signal, came ashore from the Gnat, and I found in him a friend indeed. He urged me to take Kit and Biddy to the house of his aunt (the widow of one of the canons of Salisbury Cathedral), who lived a peaceful life in one of the quaint old houses in the Close of that lovely cathedral city—at any rate until quieter times for Ireland. Not only this, but he managed so that Kit and Biddy and I were landed at Stranraer, on the Scottish coast, bearing letters from him to his aunt, who received us hospitably, and in whose care I was content to leave my beloved one, with a lighter heart concerning her than I had experienced during all the years I had known her.

I am not going to detail here all the bloody work of the next few months in our loved country. The wars of brothers are best left untold. Of the terrible doings in the north and south and west, but especially in County Wexford, at Enniscorthy and Vinegar Hill, where blood was spilt like water, we had enough, and more than enough, in the public prints, and on the loud tongue of rumour, at the time. But I was in the sea-fight off Lough Swilly, when we made mincemeat of the French squadron in October of that black year 1798, and pluckier fighting against enormous odds than was done on that day by the French frigate Hoche I had never seen, nor ever again wish to see. It was courage worthy of a better cause.

It was for the part I had in that affair that, later on, to my joy, I received my promotion, and gained the coveted right to place the honoured word “captain” after my name. With the defeat of the French expeditions in the west and north, and the capture and subsequent tragic death of the heroic if erratic genius Wolfe Tone, and after many weary days of suffering on the part of Ireland’s noblest sons and daughters, there came gradually a modifying of the brutal spirit of hatred and bloodshed throughout the land. And with the better and more kindly understanding between the peoples there came by-and-by a measure of peace and prosperity and a calm after the long period of storm and disturbance.

In the spring of 1799 Kit and I were wedded in Salisbury. My friend Captain Felton was my “best man.” At first our home was in Belfast, but we made frequent expeditions to Knockowen and Kilgorman as the countryside became more settled; for the place, in spite of all that had passed, had a fascination for both of us. And as the painful associations died away, we have long since returned to Donegal. There for many a day we and our little ones—beloved Tim and Kit and Eileen—have made our home by the side of our lovely lough, as happy a home as any to be found throughout Ireland, in a renovated and regenerated Kilgorman.

The End.