REBELLION FOILED IN ULSTER.
The government was determined to nip rebellion in the bud, and struck first at conspiracy in Ulster, where it was mainly engineered by protestant leaders. In the spring of 1797 the province was almost in open revolt. Martial law was proclaimed, and on May 18 soldiers were empowered to act without authority from a civil magistrate. An active search was made for arms. It was carried out mainly by yeomanry and militia, for the regular troops were few and mostly stationed in towns. The catholic districts were ruthlessly harried. A fierce resistance was made. Many outrages were committed by the soldiers, specially by a Welsh regiment of mounted fencibles, the Ancient Britons. Houses were burned and peasants were slaughtered. Crowds were imprisoned without process of law and many were sent off to serve in the fleet. These severities which lasted for several months crushed the life out of the conspiracy in Ulster. The government was justified in using force to suppress rebellion, but it was lamentable that the work should have been entrusted to troops which were little better than banditti. An earnest attempt was made to restrain them by Sir Ralph Abercromby, who succeeded Lord Carhampton as commander-in-chief in November. He issued an order declaring that the army was in a state of "licentiousness," and forbidding soldiers to act without the civil authority. This order was contrary to the proclamation of May 18, and gave great offence to the party of repression in the Irish government headed by Lord Clare, and to the British ministry. A proclamation of March 30, 1798, re-established martial law; Abercromby resigned his command, and was succeeded by General Lake.
The British government upheld the Irish ministers. Early in 1797 the Prince of Wales wished the king and Pitt to send him to Ireland as lord-lieutenant to carry out a policy of concession. If he had been wholly different from what he was, such a step, though it would not perhaps have averted the coming rebellion, would have probably rendered it less formidable by detaching some of the leaders of the conspiracy. The prince was not a man to be trusted, and his offer was refused. The internal affairs of Ireland were not under English direction; the ministers knew nothing of them except through reports from the castle and left them to the Irish government. Addresses in favour of conciliation were moved in the lords by the prince's friend, Lord Moira, an Ulster magnate, and in the commons by Fox. They were resisted as attacks on the government and were rejected. Moira laid the excesses of the soldiers before the lords in November and again in February, 1798. The government refused to credit his accounts, or to interfere with the measures taken by the Irish ministers to suppress rebellion.
The progress of the conspiracy was reported by informers, of whom there was no lack. Great preparations were, as we have seen, made in France for a possible invasion of England; the United Irishmen expected that the French would land in Ireland in the spring, and an organised army was ready to co-operate with them, under the command of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The conspiracy was directed by a committee in Dublin. One of its leaders, Arthur O'Connor, a priest named O'Coighly, and three more were arrested at Margate while on their way to France to make further arrangements. O'Coighly was hanged for treason. Fox, Sheridan, and other members of the opposition bore witness to O'Connor's character, and he and the rest were acquitted. He was arrested on another charge and was sent to Dublin. After the rebellion he, in common with the other political prisoners, gave evidence as to the conspiracy, and they were eventually released. No government is worthy of the name that sits still and allows conspiracy to ripen unchecked. The Irish government did not do so. It adopted measures of repression which wrecked the plans of the conspirators and caused secret conspiracy to break prematurely into open rebellion. It was thus enabled to put an end to a prolonged state of danger before it could be augmented by the anticipated foreign invasion. It struck swiftly at the heads of the conspiracy. In pursuance of information from an officer of the rebel army named Reynolds, fifteen of them were arrested together in Dublin on March 12. Fitzgerald escaped for the time. A reward of £1,000 was offered for his detection, and in May his hiding-place was betrayed. He made a desperate resistance, mortally wounded one of the officers sent to take him, and was himself wounded in the arm. He was conveyed to prison, where he died on June 4.
REPRESSIVE SEVERITIES.
The government having crushed the head of rebellion in Ulster, proceeded to combat it in the midland and southern counties, where it was distinctly a catholic movement. Officers were ordered to enforce disarmament by summary methods; martial law was established, and they were enjoined to distribute their troops at free quarters where arms were supposed to be concealed. Scenes of cruelty sickening to contemplate followed. As soon as a district was proclaimed, troops took up free quarters in it, burned every house where a weapon was discovered, shot men without trial of any kind, put many to cruel torture either on suspicion of concealing arms or to extort evidence, and excited the bitterest feelings of revenge by outrages on women, cutting the petticoats from the backs of girls who showed any sign of sympathy with rebellion, such as wearing, it might be accidentally, a green ribbon. Men were commonly tortured by floggings of fearful severity, or by half-hanging. In imitation of the French republicans, the rebel party cut their hair short, and it was a pastime with the soldiers to torture "croppies" by fixing a covering lined with hot pitch, a "pitch-cap," on their heads, which could not be removed without tearing the scalp. More than one man died under the lash, and one from fear of the torture. No name is more closely associated with these horrors than that of Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald, high-sheriff of Tipperary. Resolute, courageous, and energetic, he united with some fine qualities a violent temper and an insensibility to human suffering. Conspiracy was rife in Tipperary, and he was determined to stamp it out. One instance of his cruelties will suffice. A teacher of French named Wright was suspected of treason, and a note of a harmless kind, written in French, was found on him. Fitzgerald, who could not read it, brutally assaulted him, declared that he would have him first flogged and then shot; and failing to obtain a confession from him, caused him to receive 150 severe lashes and had him put in prison, where he lay for some days with his wounds uncared for. After the rebellion Wright sued him, and obtained £500 damages. Fitzgerald's severity and the courage with which he acted were effectual; Tipperary remained quiet. The government paid Wright's damages, and Fitzgerald's services were rewarded with a baronetcy.
The conspirators intended to wait for a French invasion. Their organisation was deranged by the arrests of March 12. A plan was made for seizing the castle and occupying Dublin. The city was proclaimed and violent measures of repression were adopted. A new rebel executive was broken up by the arrest of two brothers named Sheares, who were eventually hanged as traitors. An outbreak of rebellion was certain; it was forced on prematurely by drastic measures of repression. Though nothing can excuse the barbarities perpetrated under the shield of so-called martial law, severe repression was certainly necessary. Without it the conspiracy would have continued to grow, and a rebellion coincident with a foreign invasion would have been in the highest degree dangerous. The rebels lost their leaders; their movements were paralysed in some districts and crippled in others; they saw no hope except in an immediate outbreak, and were driven to it by intolerable severities. So far the system pursued by the government was successful. Yet in some districts the terror and rage it excited stimulated rebellion, and when rebellion broke out led to horrible reprisals. The rising began on an appointed day, May 23. Attacks were made on the garrisons at Naas, Clane, and other places in Kildare. Nearly everywhere they were repulsed with heavy loss, the catholics among the militia and yeomanry behaving with perfect loyalty. It was a sanguinary struggle. The rebels surprised a detachment of the North Cork militia by night, and slaughtered them, killing many of them in their beds. The troops gave little quarter; rebels taken in arms were commonly flogged, shot, or hanged without trial. The citizens of Dublin, where the rebels had been thoroughly cowed by floggings and hangings, were zealous in preparing to defend their city. On the south-west small bodies of troops routed the rebels with heavy loss at Carlow and Hacketstown. The communications of Dublin were secured on the north by a loyalist victory at Tara, where, on the 26th, about 400 yeomanry and fencibles defeated ten times their number of rebels, and on the west by another victory. By the 31st the rebels in Meath, Kildare, and Carlow had lost all heart.
WEXFORD REBELLION.
By that time rebellion had broken out in the county of Wexford. There it soon took the form of a religious war, though the catholic troops remained faithful to their colours. There were only 600 regular troops and militia in the county, the loyalist force being composed chiefly of yeomanry, who were generally protestants. With and without the approval of the magistrates, they had begun to practise the usual methods of enforcing disarmament, burning houses and flogging and half-hanging suspected persons, and though these severities had not as yet been practised so widely as in some other districts, they excited violent terror and resentment. Led by a priest, Father John Murphy, whose house or chapel had been burnt, the rebels defeated a small number of militia at Oulart, and attacked Enniscorthy with a force of about 7,000 men. There and elsewhere they drove horses and cattle in front of them to disorder the ranks of their opponents. After a stout defence the survivors of the little garrison fled to Wexford, whither the loyal inhabitants of the neighbourhood were flocking for protection. The rebel army, swelled to the number of 15,000, advanced on the town. An attempt to relieve it having failed, the garrison made terms and evacuated the place, which was occupied by the enemy on the 30th. The rebels chose Bagenal Harvey, a protestant gentleman and one of the United Irishmen, as commander-in-chief, and leaving a garrison in Wexford, established a camp on Vinegar hill. Hoping to penetrate into Carlow and join the rebels there and in Wicklow and Kildare, they detached 5,000 men to take Newtownbarry. Colonel L'Estrange, who commanded there, retreated with the garrison, and the rebels rushed into the place. He was soon persuaded to return, surprised them as they were pillaging, and routed them with the loss of only two men.
In the camp on Vinegar hill priests were dominant; mass was said every morning, and the fury of the people was excited by violent sermons. Protestants were brought in from the surrounding country, and all who did not receive "protections" from the priests were butchered, sometimes with ghastly cruelty. Though the priests often interfered to save the captives, it is probable that at least 400 were slain in the camp.[282] The prime object of the rebel leaders was to establish communication with other counties. Their plans were ruined by lack of discipline and organisation, as well as by the extraordinary gallantry of the loyalist troops. After some fighting a detachment of rebels took Gorey in the north of the county. Instead of pressing on into Wicklow, they remained there feasting and plundering the neighbourhood. At the same time a large body under Harvey marched on New Ross, with the object of opening communication with Kilkenny and Waterford, where they believed that thousands were ready to rise in arms.[283] The town was attacked at daybreak on June 5, and was defended by General Johnston and about 1,600 men against thousands of rebels. Again and again the garrison, beaten back for a time by sheer weight of numbers, rallied and steadily faced the enemy. Lord Mountjoy was killed as he led a charge of militia. The rebels fought desperately, but as a mere mob. After a fierce struggle of ten hours they turned and fled through the burning town. No quarter was given. At least 2,000 of them were slain. The loss on the loyalist side was 230. During the battle some rebels fled to Scullabogue House, where their army had left 224 prisoners, nearly all protestants, under a strong guard. They declared that the day was lost, that the garrison were slaughtering the catholics, and that Harvey had ordered that the prisoners should be killed. Thirty-seven were massacred at the hall door, and 184, including some women and children, were shut into a barn and burned to death. Out of the whole number only three escaped.