Musgrave’s Memoirs, which furnish the foregoing account, further enlighten us upon Murphy’s personal traits:—‘He was about forty-five years old, light complexioned, bald-pated, and about five feet nine inches high, well made, uniting strength with agility. He was exceedingly irascible, and when in a passion had somewhat the aspect of a tiger. His pix, his oil stock, and a small crucifix were found in his pocket.’
LANDING OF THE FRENCH INVADERS IN KILLALLA BAY
In the west of Ireland the system of terrorism was also incessantly persevered in; general murders were announced, and the people continued not to sleep in their own houses to avoid surprise. The strangest means by which these imaginary massacres were to be effected were invented, promulgated, and believed, and the peasantry in many places actually remained night after night in the open fields as the only means of escaping the devilish devices of destroyers.
Musgrave has set down in his Memoirs: ‘A few days before the French landed, a report was industriously circulated that the Protestants had entered into a conspiracy to massacre the Roman Catholics, and that they would not spare man, woman, or child. It was said that for this purpose a large quantity of combustible stuff had been introduced by the Orangemen, who made a kind of black candles of it; that they were of such a quality that they could not be extinguished when once lighted, and that in whatever house they should be burnt they would produce the destruction of every person in it.’
Such was the state of Mayo and Connaught generally when, on the 22nd of August 1798, three French frigates, with English colours flying, entered Killalla Bay. No suspicion was occasioned by their appearance, and under the belief that they were British cruisers, several gentlemen from the town visited the strangers, and when declared prisoners first discovered their mistake.
Killalla was at that time a bishop’s see (subsequently suppressed on the passing of the Reform Bill). On the day when the French appeared in the bay the lord-bishop was holding his annual visitation, and the clergy of the diocese were collected in the castle, as the see-house was popularly called. The strange vessels, however, excited no alarm; dinner passed quietly, the guests were preparing to depart, when that intention was accelerated by the arrival of a breathless messenger to inform the company and their host that the French had actually landed, and an advanced guard of three hundred men were marching on the town.
Killalla was feebly garrisoned by a party of the Prince of Wales’s Fencibles and a few yeomanry, the whole not exceeding fifty or sixty men, but still they offered a bold resistance, until, with the loss of a few killed and wounded, they were finally driven into the castle and obliged to surrender. The commander of this extraordinary expedition, Humbert, after summoning the bishop to his presence, and having announced that he came from the great nation to give the Irish liberty and sever the yoke of England, which had so long oppressed them, proceeded to put into requisition his lordship’s horses, sheep, and cows, intimating at the same time that the Irish Directory, to be established immediately in Connaught, would pay the full value of the same.
The French officers gave the following account of the expedition:—‘About eighteen days before, 1500 men, some of whom had served under Bonaparte in Italy, the rest had been of the army of the Rhine, embarked on board three frigates at Rochelle, and on a very dark night eluded (beyond their expectation) the vigilance of the English fleet, which was close behind them. Two of them had forty-four guns, eighteen-pounders, the other thirty-eight guns, twelve-pounders. They said also they brought nine pieces of cannon and arms for 100,000 men, but this was French gasconnade, as they had arms only for 5500 men and but two four-pounders. The meagre persons and the wan and sallow countenances of these troops, whose numbers did not exceed 1060 rank and file and 70 officers, strongly indicated the severe hardships which they must have undergone.
‘They hoisted a green flag in front of the castle, with the Irish words, “Erin go braugh” inscribed on it, which signifies “Ireland for ever,” and they invited the people to join them, having assured them that they would enjoy freedom and happiness by doing so.
‘The first day they passed in landing arms and ammunition; the second in clothing and arming the natives, of whom great multitudes flocked to their standard, and granting commissions to Irish officers.’