The Yeomanry in 1798.

The Irish Yeomanry in 1798.

(See Chapter 5.)

The connivance of Dempsey, the yeoman, at Lord Edward’s escape is the more singular, when we remember that he belonged to a body which was notorious for its implacability to suspected persons. The personal narratives of Hay, Cloney, Teeling, O’Kelly the historic researches of Madden, and the traditions of the people, furnish abundant anecdotes of their brutality. The following reminiscences, communicated to us by the late Mrs Plunkett of Frescati - the early residence, by the way, of Lord Edward Fitzgerald - as they do not happen to have been printed, may be given here. Mrs Plunkett was a Miss Barrington of the county Wexford, and belonged to an old and respectable Protestant family.

Previous to the outburst of the rebellion there was a noted bridewell at Geneva, in the county Wexford, wherein persons suspected of treasonable tendencies were incarcerated, and from thence removed soon after to some distant place of transportation. The betrothed of one young woman and the husband of another were cast into this prison.

The women were permitted to visit the captives; they exchanged clothes, and the men passed out unrecognised. When the young women were discovered occupying the cells, nothing could exceed the rage of the local yeomanry. They assembled a mock court-martial; found the fair conspirators guilty of having aided and abetted the escape of traitors, and then sentenced them to be tossed naked in a blanket. The yeomanry carried their decision into effect. They roughly tore the garments from the young women, stripped them stark naked, and then prostrated them on the blanket which was prepared for their punishment. They were tossed unmercifully, amidst the brutal laughter of the assembled yeomanry.

A Scotch regiment present had the manly feeling to turn their backs. The married woman was pregnant, and died from the effects of the treatment she received. The younger girt a person of great beauty, was seriously injured both in body and mind. Mrs Plunkett frequently said, that on the approach of the yeomanry, flushed with victory and revenge, Father Brennan, a near neighbour of hers, fled, leaving a deaf and dumb girl in charge of the chapel-house. Mortified at not finding the priest, and irritated at the girl’s silence, the yeomanry cut out her tongue, which had refused to obey them, and placing her upon a dunghill, slowly tortured her to death!

About the same time, and in the same county, the yeomanry, after having sacked the chapel and hunted the priest, deputed one or their corps to enter the confessional and personate the good paston In the course of the day some young men on their way to the battle of Oulart, dropped in for absolution. One, who disclosed his intention, and craved the personated priest’s blessing, was retorted upon with a curse, while the yeoman, losing patience, flung off the soutane, revealing beneath his scarlet uniform. The youth was shot upon the spot, and his grave is still shown at Passage.

The height to which party rancour ran was disgusting. Brunehaut, who condemned her foe to drink out of a murdered parent’s skull, found imitators of her idiosyncrasy in Ireland. Miss G---, the daughter of a Wexford terrorist, directed many of the tortures which were so extensively practised; and our informant knew her to stir a bowl of punch with a croppy’s finger!

Miss G--- was subsequently burnt with yeomen and others in the barn at Scullabogue - an act which has cast indelible stigma on the rebellion in Wexford - and her screams were heard long after all others had ceased.

A female servant of Mrs Barrington’s surprised her mistress, long after the rebellion, by confessing, “It was I went for the lighted turf which set fire to the barn at Scullybogue.”

Lord Cornwallis, the more humane viceroy who succeeded Lord Camden, notices, in a letter to General Ross, the “ferocity and atrocity” of the yeomen, and that they take the lead in rapine and murder. He adds:-

“The feeble outrages, burnings, and murders which are still committed by the rebels serve to keep up the sanguinary disposition on our side; and so long as they furnish a pretext for our parties going in quest or them, I see no prospect of amendment.

“The conversation of the principal persons of the country all tend to encourage this system of blood; and the conversation even at my table, where you will suppose I do all I can to prevent it, always turns on hanging, shooting, burning, &c., &c.; and if a priest has been put to death, the greatest joy is expressed by the whole company. So much for Ireland and my wretched situation.” [Memoirs and correspondence of the Marquis of Cornwallis, vol. ii., p.363.]

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