‘And Lieutenant-General Lake hereby requires all the inhabitants of the city of Dublin (the great officers of State, members of the houses of Parliament, privy councillors, magistrates, and military persons in uniform excepted) to remain within their respective dwellings from nine o’clock at night till five in the morning, under pain of punishment.’
The Lord Mayor’s proclamation was equally to the point and equally judicious:—
‘Whereas the circumstances of the present crisis demand every possible precaution; these are therefore to desire all persons who have registered arms forthwith to give in, in writing, an exact list or inventory of such arms at the town-clerk’s office, who will file and enter the same in books to be kept for that purpose. And all persons who have not registered these arms are hereby required forthwith to deliver up to me, or some other magistrate of this city, all arms and ammunition of every kind in their possession. And if, after this proclamation, any person having registered arms shall be found not to have given in a true list or inventory of such arms, or if any person who has not registered shall be found to have in their power or possession any arms or ammunition whatever, such person or persons will, on such arms being discovered, be forthwith sent on board his Majesty’s navy, as by law directed.
‘And I do hereby desire that all housekeepers do place upon the outside of their doors a list of persons in their respective houses, distinguishing such as are strangers from those who actually make part of their family; but as there may happen to be persons who, from pecuniary embarrassments, are obliged to conceal themselves, I do not require such names to be placed on the outside of the door, provided their names are sent to me. And I hereby call upon his Majesty’s subjects within the county of the city of Dublin immediately to comply with this regulation, as calculated for the public security; as those persons who shall wilfully neglect a regulation so easy and salutary, as well as persons giving false statements of the inmates of their houses, must, in the present crisis, abide the consequences of such neglect.’
SURPRISE OF THE BARRACKS OF PROSPEROUS
The outbreaks in the immediate vicinity of Dublin come next in the order of alike the chronological sequence of events and of the illustrations. Slight affairs occurred on the night of the 23rd, and upon the following day. At Rathfarnham, Lucan, Lusk, Collan, and Baltinglass the royalists and rebels came in contact, and the latter were repulsed. At Dunboyne and Barretstown the escorts of some baggage (Reay and Suffolk Fencibles) were surprised. On the succeeding day Clane, Naas, Ballymore-Eustace, Kilcullen, and Prosperous were attacked, and with the exception of the latter, in every effort the rebels were unsuccessful.
Prosperous, a small but thriving town, then generally inhabited by persons manufacturing cottons, is seventeen miles from Dublin. It was garrisoned by a detachment of the North Cork Militia, some forty men under Captain Swayne, with a lieutenant and twenty of the Ancient British Cavalry. The infantry occupied a temporary barrack, half the cavalry were quartered in an opposite house, and the remainder in single billets. On the Sunday (20th) previous to the outbreak Swayne arrived in Prosperous with his detachment. He attended at the chapel with Dr. Esmond, a man of great local influence, and then implored the people there assembled to deliver up any arms which might be concealed, return to their allegiance, and receive the protection he was authorised to grant them. This exhortation proved ineffectual; some coercive measures—such as the seizure of cattle, then warranted by martial law—were resorted to; and on the 23rd it was intimated that fear had hitherto prevented the peasantry from bringing the concealed arms to the town, and that should they be permitted to enter after dark, unchallenged and unmolested, on the following night, pikes and firearms would be brought in and deposited in the streets.
It is difficult to decide whether the stupidity of Swayne or the treachery of Esmond were most to be condemned. A man individually may trifle with himself, but for him who turns right or left from the plain path which duty points to, and compromises the safety of those committed to his charge, there can be no extenuation. For Swayne’s folly there can be no apology—his pickets should have been doubled—a cart, a ladder drawn across the street, would have marked sufficiently where those who came to surrender arms might approach with full security. A step beyond it, if the challenge failed, the advanced sentry shot the intruder, and the garrison was at once alarmed. So much for Captain Swayne. His weakness was inexcusable—he died its victim—ignobly certainly, but still by the weapon of a foeman. Esmond met the doom he merited—a halter. Mus-grave’s account of the surprise is authentic:—
‘At two o’clock on Thursday morning, the 24th May, the two sentinels were surprised and killed; and both the barracks were assaulted while the soldiers were fast asleep. The barracks of the Cork company consisted of a hall, an apartment on each side, the same in the next storey, and underground offices. A party of the rebels rushed into Captain Swayne’s apartment, which was on the ground floor, and murdered him. Some soldiers, who slept in the opposite apartment, alarmed at the noise, came forth with their firelocks and expelled those ruffians from the barrack, after having killed two or three of them.
‘The house was at that time surrounded with a great number of rebels variously armed. A fierce conflict ensued between the assailants and the besieged; but it was soon put an end to by the following malignant device of the former. There was a great quantity of straw in the underground office, to which the rebels set fire, and, to increase the flame, introduced some faggots into it. The soldiers were soon in a state of suffocation; and the heat being so great that they could not endure it, they retreated to their comrades in the upper storey; but the flames and smoke soon reached them there, as the rebels continued to introduce lighted faggots into the apartments under them. Enveloped with thick smoke, and overcome with heat, some of them leaped out of the windows, but were immediately received on the pikes of the assailants, who gave a dreadful yell whenever that occurred.