Rebellion in Wicklow

The Rebellion in Wicklow - Fusilade at Dunlavin.

The Rev. John F. Shearman, late of Dunlavin, and now of Howth, has obligingly sent to us, since the publication of our previous edition, the following waifs and strays of the rebellion in Wicklow, gathered from aged witnesses of the events. Details of the more important events of the insurrection in Wicklow can be found in Hay and Musgrave’s histories; but the incidents gleaned by Mr Shearman which possess historic value do not exist in any accessible form. “The memory of these events,” writes Mr Shearman, “is still green in Dunlavin, but few unless one in my position could elicit much information on a subject always dangerous to touch in that locality. I append other episodes, for the truth and correctness of which I can give every guarantee :”-

I.

Some days before this cruel execution, which took place May 26, 1798, Captain Saunders, of Saunders’s Grove, near Stratford-on-Slaney, reviewed his corps, and then announced that he had private information of all those in it who were United Irishmen. All who were such were their ordered to step from the ranks. Many, in the belief that he had true information of their infidelity, came forward. One man, however, Pat Doyle by name, having got a hint from Captain Saunders’s butler, who was a member of the corps, that his master had no reliable information, said, when his name was called, that he was no “United man,” the remainder of them took the hint, and the gallant captain was thus foiled. The unfortunate men who so unintentionally betrayed themselves were pinioned and marched to the market-house of Dunlavin for confinement until their fate would be decided.

Next day Captain William Ryves of the Rathsallagh yeomen, being on the look-out for insurgents on the hill of Uske, his horse was killed by a ball aimed at its rider. Ryves got home safely; rode to Dunlavin, and then it was determined to shoot the prisoners of Saunders’s yeomen, and those of the Narraghmore corps, numbering in all 36 men. Next day, the 26th of May, being the market-day of Dunlavin, these unfortunates were marched from the market-house to the fair green, on the rising ground above the little town. In a hollow or pit on the north side, near the gate of the Roman Catholic chapel on the Sparrowhouse Road, the victims were ranged, while a platoon of the Ancient Britons stood on the higher ground on the south side of the green on the Boherbuoy Road. They fired with murderous effect on the 36 victims. All fell - dead and dying - amid the shrieks and groans of the bystanders, among whom were their widows and relatives.

After this murderous task was completed, the military retired to the market-house for other acts scarcely less cruel and bloody. Flogging and hanging was the order of the day, to stamp out disaffection and strike terror into the hearts of the country people. At the green, when all was hushed, while the life-blood was welling from the murdered victims, their friends and relatives powerless to soothe their pangs, and lurking in terror behind the neighbouring fences, the soldiers’ wives came to rifle the mangled corpses of the slain. One poor fellow who was only wounded, when he found his watch being taken from him, made a faint effort at resistance, but in vain; the savage woman sent for her husband, who quickly settled the matter by firing a pistol into the ear of the wounded man.

Another victim, Peter Prendergast, was also living, being wounded in such a manner as that his bowels were exposed. He feigned death, was also plundered, and thus escaped. Towards evening the bodies of those who were not already carried away by their friends were taken to the cemetery of Tournant and there buried in a large pit. Prendergast was still alive, and a woman replaced his bowels, bound him round with her shawl; he was carried home, and lived to an advanced age. Some few persons still surviving have a vivid recollection of the cruel and savage scenes.

An old man told the writer that he remembers his father taking him to the town on that day, when he saw men hanging in death’s agonies between the pillars of the market-house. He remembers an event which it is well to record, as relieving the barbaric cruelty of the scene. One John Martin, in a fight with a soldier, snatched his sword. He was seized and dragged to the market-house to his doom. The sword was taken from him and placed on a peg in the wall. A respectable Protestant friend interested himself for Martin, who eventually escaped injury; while his fate was a subject of altercation between the authorities, a soldier’s wife took down the sword, and unperceived in the heat of the dispute cut the rope by which one Thomas Egan, a smith, was suspended, writhing in the agonies of suffocation. He fell unnoticed to the ground, revived, and escaped to Dublin.

The following is a list of the slain, as far as ascertained

John Reeravan, Daniel Reeravan, brothers, Uppertown, Dunlavin; Laurence Doyle, Dunlavin; Martin Gryffen, do., aet. 21; [Martin Gryffen came from Dublin the evening before to see his aged father. He was seized in the garden of his house while saying his prayers, and executed, though not implicated at all in the movement] --- Duffy, --- Duffy, brothers, Ballina ; Matthew Farrell, Stratford-on-Slaney; Michael Neil, Dunlavin; Richard Williams, Ballinacrow; Andrew Ryan, Scruckawn; ---- Keating, --- Keating, brothers; and Edmond Slalleny, Narraghmore; Andrew Prendergast, Ballinacrow ; Peter Kearney, John Dwyer, [John Dwyer of Donard was uncle to Michael Dwyer, the insurgent of Imaile in 1803.] and John Kearney, Donard; Peter Headon, Killabeg; Thomas Brien, Ballinacrow Hill; John Doyle, Scruckawn; Morgan Doyle and John Doyle, Tuckmill; --- Webb, Baltinglass; John Wickam, Eadestown; --- Costelloe; --- Bermingham, --- Bermingham, brothers, Narraghmore corps; Patrick Moran, Tuckmill; Peter Prendergast, Bumbohall. []

II.

*Mat *24,1798. - The Ancient Britons having shot 12 insurgents at Ballymore-Eustace, came to Dunlavin the next day by a detour through Lemmonstown, in the county Wicklow. A farmer in that townland named M’Donald had four sons, concerning whom secret information had been given by one Fox, a miller from Hollywood. The military dashed into the house while McDonald, his wife, and four sons, Kit, John, Harry, and Tom, were at dinner. The young men were dragged out of the house, and while preparations were being made to shoot them, one of the M’Donalds was compelled to put a burning turf into the thatch of the house, and while doing so his hand was shot off by one of the soldiers.

In vain did the old man proclaim the innocence of his sons, while he showed a written protection given them by Captain Ryves of Rathsallagh. The two eldest were ordered to kneel down, their aged parent falling on his knees beside them imploring mercy. They were murdered by his side, while their mother looked on, regardless of all danger from the raging fire behind her. The two younger M’Donalds escaped in the confusion, concealed by the smoke of their burning homestead. They were perceived, but escaped unhurt, amidst volleys of bullets from their pursuers, and found a safe retreat in the wild glens and recesses of Church Mountain. The murdered bodies of the young men were concealed, and on the following Sunday before daybreak their aged parents carried them in sacks for a hasty burial in the old church-yard of Hollywood.

III.

In the summer of 1812, my informant went with his servants to draw home turf from the bog of Narraghmore. While they were loading their carts, a respectable young man was seen to approach, attended by a servant, who led into the bog a dray and horse, in which was a coffin with some spades for digging. The young man seemed to look anxiously about him, and after some time began to open the surface of the bog. This very strange proceeding excited the curiosity of the informant, who with his men came to ‘the place where the stranger was excavating. His labours soon unravelled to some degree the mystery of the coffin. A corpse in perfect preservation lay exposed, but of a tallow-coloured hue, owing to the mode and place of burial. The corpse was placed in the coffin, and the young man, before returning homewards with it, told those present that it was the body of his father, who was shot in the “battle of the bog road” in the year 1798. He also told them that from time to time in his dreams he thought he saw his father come to his bedside, telling him to remove his remains, intimating also where they lay. Urged by the vividness and frequency of these nocturnal wanderings, he at last came to the resolution to remove the remains to be mingled with their kindred dust in some cemetery in the neighbourhood of Carlow. The young man’s name was Brennan; his father was an extensive currier, and at the time of the skirmish happened to be going to Dublin with seven drays laden with merchandise. He was met on the bog road at Narraghmore, was detained by the military, his drays and horses drawn up for a barrier, from behind which they fired on the insurgents. Poor Brennan fell by a random bullet, and his mangled body found a hastily-made grave, where it lay for 15 years, until removed for Christian interment by the hands of a devoted child from its lone and nameless grave in the bog of Narraghmore.

IV.

In the August of ‘98, some yeomen passed through Donard and went to Kilbelet, to the house of Mr John Metcalf, known by the soubriquet of “the Bully.” He was descended of a respectable Yorkshire family, a scion of which settled near Donard abont a century before. Metcalf, learning his danger, fled up the side of Church Mountain. He was pursued and murdered on the mearings of the townland of Woodenboley. His assassins were two brothers who had been previously in his employment, and owing to some disagreement about their work, they left him. Taking to illicit courses, they were soon after convicted of sheep-stealing and condemned to the rope, but with the alternative of joining the army, which latter they availed themselves of to live, as it appears, for the commission of deeper crimes, for which they were allowed to go unpunished.

V.

At the battle of Old Kilcullen, Captain Erskine, while writhing in the agonies of death, by a sword-blow aimed at his assailant, cut right through the pike handle, while its blade pinioned him to the earth. “A long mound in the cemetery of New Abbey,” adds Mr Shearman, “marks the spot where he and his men who fell in the conflict were buried.”

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