Women of 'Ninety-Eight

Each story keeps the passage it was read from. Open one to read the passage as the book has it, and, where the companion has written its own telling, that too.

1. Execution of Henry Joy McCracken at the old market-house

   near Belfast · city · Antrim · 1798

   Henry Joy McCracken was executed at the old market-house in Belfast, on ground given to the town by his own great-great-grandfather; his sister Mary accompanied him to the scaffold before being led away.

   Read the passage

   “The time allowed him was now expired: he had hoped for a few days, that he might give his friends an account of all the later events in which he had taken a part. About five _p.m._ he was ordered to the place of execution, the old market-house, the ground of which had been given to the town by his great great grandfather. I took his arm, and we walked together to the place of execution, where I was told it was the general’s orders that I should leave him, which I peremptorily refused. Harry begged I would go. Clasping my hands around him (I did not weep till then) I said I could bear anything but leaving him. Three times he kissed me, and entreated I would go; and looking round to recognise some friend to put me in charge of, he beckoned to a Mr. Boyd, and said, ‘He will take charge of you.’ Mr. Boyd stepped forward; and fearing any further refusal would disturb the last moments of my dearest brother, I suffered myself to be led away.... A Mr. Armstrong, a friend of our family, came forward and took me from Mr. Boyd, and conducted me home. I immediately sent a message to Dr. McDonnell and Mr. McCluney, our apothecary, to come directly to our house. The latter came, and Dr. McDonnell sent his brother, Alexander, a skilful surgeon. The body was given up to his family unmutilated; so far our entreaties and those of our friends prevailed.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

2. The oath on Cave Hill at McArt's Fort

   near Cavehill · population centre · Antrim · 1795

   On a visit to Belfast before their emigration, Tone, Russell, Neilson, Simms, and MacCracken climbed to McArt's Fort on Cave Hill and swore a solemn oath never to desist until they had subverted English authority over Ireland and secured independence.

   Read the passage

   The attentions of the kind friends in Dublin, great as they were, were far surpassed by those they found awaiting them in Belfast. The MacCrackens, the Simmses, the Neilsons, Dr. MacDonnell, and a host of others vied with each other in getting up entertainments for them; parties and excursions were the order of the day. Tone tells us of some of these in his Journal. He remembers particularly two days passed on Cave Hill. On the first, Russell, Neilson, Simms, MacCracken, and he climbed to McArt’s fort and took a solemn obligation never to desist in their efforts until they had subverted the authority of England, over their country, and asserted their independence. Another day they had a pic-nic in the Deer Park, for which the Belfast ladies, Mary Anne and Margaret MacCracken, Mrs. Neilson, Miss Simms, etc., exerted all their culinary talents; another day, even more delicious yet, was spent in a pic-nic party to beautiful Ram’s Island in Lough Neagh. After their return to town there were suppers and dances and a little music in these friends’ houses. Many, many years after, Mary Anne MacCracken, then a very old woman, told Dr. Madden of what she felt when she heard little Maria Tone sing in her clear voice, to the air of “The Cruiskeen Lawn,” her father’s spirited words: “When Rome by dividing had conquered the world.”

   The last evening of their stay came all too quickly. They were spending it at the MacCracken’s home, of which Bunting was an inmate. The talk turned, as it was bound to do among such ardent lovers of music, as these were, on Bunting’s collection of Irish Melodies which was well on its way to completion, and Bunting was asked to play some air from it.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 4

3. The Massacre of Dunlavin

   Dunlavin · town · Wicklow · 1798

   Captain Saunders of Saunders' Grove tricked yeomen into identifying themselves as United Irishmen; thirty-six were locked in the market-house of Dunlavin and later marched to a hollow near the Catholic Church, where Ancient Britons shot them dead on the Fair Day.

   Read the passage

   One day, Captain Saunders of Saunders’ Grove, reviewing his yeomanry, suddenly announced that he knew those who were United Irishmen among them, and ordered them to fall out. About thirty-six of them did; but the others, imitating the example of one Pat Doyle (who had had word of what was forward from the Captain’s brother) stayed in their places. The thirty-six who had “given themselves away,” were locked up in the market-house of Dunlavin, and on the Fair Day of Dunlavin, they were marched out to a hollow near the Catholic Church, while a number of Ancient Britons were posted on a height at some little distance. The word was given; the Ancient Britons fired—and the men fell in their blood, amid the shrieks and groans of the bystanders, among whom were their widows and relatives.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 16

4. Brothers hanged, drawn and quartered at Carrickfergus Gallow's Green

   Carrickfergus · townland · Antrim · 1803

   Two young men who had posted Robert Emmet's proclamation around Carnmoney were subsequently hanged, drawn and quartered at the Gallow's Green in Carrickfergus. The sister of one victim later made a harrowing nighttime journey to recover her brother's body from the shared grave.

   Read the passage

   One of these tells of a sister, whose brother, with another lad, had undertaken the dangerous office of posting up Robert Emmet’s proclamation around Carnmoney, a few miles to the north of Belfast. For this they were subsequently hanged, drawn and quartered on the Gallow’s Green at Carrickfergus. At dead of night the sister, who had walked all the way from Carnmoney, was led by pitying friends to the spot where the poor mangled bodies lay. “She knelt down and with stifled sobs and much difficulty removed the clay that had been hastily piled above them. Her hand first came upon a head which by the feel of the features she thought was that of her brother. She wrapped it in her apron and carried it back to her home, so absorbed in her grief that she felt not the miles her speeding feet covered. When she arrived home, she discovered that the head she had borne on that sorrowful journey was not her brother’s, but that of the other poor lad. She retraced her steps, running between the hedgerows in her anxiety to reach the Gallow’s Green before the people should be afoot, stumbling on the uneven stones, and praying with all her tortured heart that her strength might last until her purpose should be accomplished.... She arrived at the grave, reverentially deposited the head back in its place, and taking up the one she had come to seek departed again for Carnmoney.”

   It is to Mary McCracken that we owe our knowledge of the story of young Willie Neilson, of Ballycarry, and his poor mother. Willie, who was only fifteen years of age, had on the eve of the Antrim Rising formed one of a party which made a prisoner of a Carrickfergus pensioner called Cuthbert, and conveyed him to the Insurgent’s place of muster at Donegore Hill. For this he was arrested, court-martialled and sent to prison, where his two elder brothers were already lodged. But on account of his extreme youth neither he nor his friends anticipated any danger to his life.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 17

5. Mrs. Downey searches the Curragh for her husband's body

   Grey Abbey · townland · Down · 1798

   Denis Downey of Grey Abbey near Kildare joined the surrender at the Curragh despite warnings and was shot dead by Lord Roden's Fencibles. His wife, following a dream of his death, searched the field, turning over two hundred corpses before finding him, and had to bury him without a coffin for fear of reprisal.

   Read the passage

   When her father came home with his tidings, Mrs. Downey insisted on getting out one of the carts, and proceeding to the place of the slaughter to search for her husband’s body—for she was quite convinced that her dream was true, and she would find him among the slain. She came at last to the bloody plain, and found it littered with corpses. She turned over two hundred dead bodies before she discovered her husband’s. She laid him in the cart, covered him with straw and a quilt, and proceeded to the house of a relative to wake him. But the word had gone round that wherever a rebel corpse should be found the house sheltering it would be burned by the “yeos.” Without waiting even for a coffin, the broken-hearted young widow had to wrap her man in a sheet, and so see him laid in the hastily made grave. When quieter days came and she was able to return to the home he had made for her, she found it a wreck. She sold her farm and went to live in Monasterevan.

   Her story presents to our imagination the tragedy of the “Widows of the Massacres” in concrete form. But it is the story of only one woman. Think of it as multiplied by the number of all the women who were left desolate on that day—and estimate the sum of woman’s misery caused by that one day alone—if our hearts dare!

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 16

6. Russell tried for his life at Downpatrick, 1803

   near Downpatrick · town · Down · 1803

   In October 1803 Thomas Russell, captured in Dublin after his role in supporting Robert Emmet's rising, was carried in chains to Downpatrick to stand trial for his life, where he delivered his famous 'Speech from the Dock'.

   Read the passage

   The autumn of 1803 marked the close of Mary McCracken’s pathetic romance. In October of that year Russell, who had come over from France, in the early summer to assist Robert Emmet, and who had undertaken, with the faithful Jamie Hope, to rouse the North to a new stand for freedom, was taken prisoner in Dublin, and carried back in chains to Downpatrick to be tried for his life. Once more Mary McCracken, stifling the pain of her wounded heart, made superhuman efforts to save her doomed friend. During the weeks when he was in hiding she and her sister had already visited him, and provided him with funds for his journey to Dublin. When he was taken, the two sisters pledged their credit to the last penny, to raise the necessary money for his defence. It was Mary’s earnest desire to go to Downpatrick to be present at the trial, and only the representations of her family prevented her. On the eve of the trial she received a letter from Russell. It was all the reward her faithful heart obtained for the years of silent love it had lavished on the writer—but perhaps those words of farewell from the condemned cell in Downpatrick seemed to her better worth treasuring than the love letters of happier women.

   It is to Mary McCracken that we owe the record of Russell’s most noble and touching “Speech from the Dock.” For she and her sister sent Hughes, a clerk of their brother John’s, to take notes in court of his address. And when the scaffold had done its work, and the gallant form lay mangled in its shadow, it was she who gave it, in the sacred soil of Downpatrick, the tomb, where with the “Three Wonder Working Saints of Erin,” Patrick, Brigid and Columcille, it awaits the Resurrection:

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

7. Sister's midnight vigil at the Carrickfergus grave

   Carrickfergus · townland · Antrim · 1803

   At dead of night the sister walked from Carnmoney to the Gallow's Green, uncovered the mangled bodies, and mistakenly carried away the wrong head before returning it and retrieving her true brother's remains. Her ordeal is preserved as one of the North's treasured memories of 1803.

   Read the passage

   One of these tells of a sister, whose brother, with another lad, had undertaken the dangerous office of posting up Robert Emmet’s proclamation around Carnmoney, a few miles to the north of Belfast. For this they were subsequently hanged, drawn and quartered on the Gallow’s Green at Carrickfergus. At dead of night the sister, who had walked all the way from Carnmoney, was led by pitying friends to the spot where the poor mangled bodies lay. “She knelt down and with stifled sobs and much difficulty removed the clay that had been hastily piled above them. Her hand first came upon a head which by the feel of the features she thought was that of her brother. She wrapped it in her apron and carried it back to her home, so absorbed in her grief that she felt not the miles her speeding feet covered. When she arrived home, she discovered that the head she had borne on that sorrowful journey was not her brother’s, but that of the other poor lad. She retraced her steps, running between the hedgerows in her anxiety to reach the Gallow’s Green before the people should be afoot, stumbling on the uneven stones, and praying with all her tortured heart that her strength might last until her purpose should be accomplished.... She arrived at the grave, reverentially deposited the head back in its place, and taking up the one she had come to seek departed again for Carnmoney.”

   It is to Mary McCracken that we owe our knowledge of the story of young Willie Neilson, of Ballycarry, and his poor mother. Willie, who was only fifteen years of age, had on the eve of the Antrim Rising formed one of a party which made a prisoner of a Carrickfergus pensioner called Cuthbert, and conveyed him to the Insurgent’s place of muster at Donegore Hill. For this he was arrested, court-martialled and sent to prison, where his two elder brothers were already lodged. But on account of his extreme youth neither he nor his friends anticipated any danger to his life.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 17

8. Execution of Bartle Teeling at Arbour Hill

   Arbour Hill · street · Dublin · 1798

   Bartle Teeling, who had fought in the Humbert Expedition, was executed on the 'martyr's mound' at Arbour Hill, Dublin, on September 24th, 1798. Before his death he sent his sister's ring to his brother as a pledge of fraternal love.

   Read the passage

   For in the days when Luke Teeling was enduring the horrors of the prison ship in the sweltering summer heat,[52] Bartle’s brief but glorious day had come to its heroic close on the “martyr’s mound” at Arbour Hill, Dublin. It is not here that may be fully told the gallant story of Bartle Teeling and the part he played in the Humbert Expedition. On his white charger he rides for ever amid the “fair chivalry” of the boy-heroes of Ireland amid the

   “White horsemen with Christ their Captain—forever he.”

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

   As the companion tells it

   Along here is Arbour Hill, where Bartle Teeling was executed on the martyr's mound on September 24th, 1798. He had fought in the Humbert Expedition, and before his death he sent his sister's ring to his brother Luke as a pledge of fraternal love. Luke was enduring the horrors of a prison ship that same sweltering summer. The book remembers Bartle riding his white charger forever among the boy-heroes of Ireland.

9. Massacre of Betsy Grey, her brother and lover by Annahilt yeomen

   near Ballynahinch · town · Down · 1798

   Fleeing after the defeat at Ballynahinch, Betsy Grey, her brother George, and her sweetheart Willie Boal were overtaken in rough broken country by a party of Annahilt yeomen and butchered.

   Read the passage

   Betsy, in company with her brother, and her sweetheart, gained a rough tract of country, all broken with rocks and furze. Here they were overtaken by a party of Annahilt yeomen, and all three ruthlessly butchered.

   The bodies lay there all day, but at nightfall, the wife of the farmer on whose land the tragedy had occurred, stole out with her little son—and kind and reverent hands laid Betsy with her brother and lover in their grave “in the vale of Ballycreen,” which even to-day is a place of patriotic pilgrimage.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 15

10. Execution of Willie Neilson at Ballycarry

    Ballycarry · townland · Antrim · 1798

    Willie Neilson refused to inform on the leaders at Antrim despite being offered his freedom, and was taken to his native village of Ballycarry to be executed, encountering his desperate mother along the way before being put to death at the end of the village.

    Read the passage

    At midnight he was taken from prison, and offered his freedom on condition that he should give information against the leaders at Antrim. He refused; and no amount of pressure could make him yield one inch. They told him he must die; his only request was that he might see his minister, and be allowed to say farewell to his brother, Sam. Sam Neilson expected to share Willie’s fate, but that fact did not prevent him from encouraging Willie to die rather than “inform.” Soon after daybreak the boy was taken to his native village of Ballycarry, there to die. On the way he met his poor mother, who had set out to visit the prison. When she saw him in the midst of the soldiery, she rushed towards him, and while the soldiers tried to separate them he caught her hand, and exclaimed “Oh! my mother!” But they dragged him from her arms. She threw herself at her landlord’s feet, as he rode past, in the midst of the cavalry, begging him to intercede for her boy. His only answer was, “Get out of my way, or I’ll ride over you.” They brought Willie to his mother’s door to execute him there. But, brutes as they were, they saw this would be too iniquitous, and they yielded to the boy’s prayer and took him away to the end of the village. Even then the undaunted boy had leisure of heart to think of his dear ones. He begged that the sacrifice of his life might expiate the offences of his brothers, and that his body should be given to his mother. The soldiers tried to make him use the bandage for his eyes. But he refused with the proud word “that he had done nothing to make him screen his face.” Then, looking as his mother always remembered him afterwards, “very handsome and fair and blooming, with his light hair tossing in the wind, and the open shirt-neck, emphasising the youth of him,” Willie Neilson went forth to his death—for Ireland.

    * * * * *

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 17

11. Horrors of the Postlethwaite Prison Ship in Belfast Lough

    near Belfast Lough · estuary · Antrim · 1798

    Luke Teeling was moved from the provost prison to the Postlethwaite tender, a prison ship lying in Belfast Lough, one of the horrors of the day. His son's narrative describes thirty-four gentlemen crammed into a fourteen-foot space, suffering heat, cold, and festering wounds.

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    “The _Postlethwaite Tender_, on which my father was confined, contained within the limits of one small apartment, thirty-four gentlemen, of respectable rank in life and independent circumstances. In this miserable prison-house, its inmates could never stand erect, and crowded together in a circumscribed space not fourteen feet square, they could only enjoy a partial and unrefreshing slumber in succession. Here, entombed on the ocean, during the sultry heat of a summer the most oppressive that has been remembered for thirty years, they inhaled the pestiferous atmosphere of a tender; in the depth of winter, when their numbers were reduced to a few, they were exposed with open port-holes to all the inclemency of the chilling blast. Nor were they permitted to receive a supply of wholesome food from their friends; nothing was allowed them beyond what the parsimonious bounty of Government afforded. At four o’clock in the evening the hatches were locked down, and the prisoners remained in darkness until nine on the following morning. Sometimes, forgetful of his situation, the prisoner would raise his form to stand erect ... when the hard repelling beam, in contact with his head, reminded him that the hand of man had prescribed his limits. My father, whose fine-formed head and silver locks are still present to my imagination, presented on his removal from this prison, a perfect encrustment of festered wounds from forehead to nape.”—C. H. Teeling’s “Narrative.”

    And the day shall come, please God, when no Irish boy shall be ignorant of the lines he wrote in the Golden Annals of their knightly company.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

12. Prendergast wounded and rescued after Dunlavin, sheltered by Michael Dwyer

    Dunlavin · town · Wicklow · 1798

    Prendergast survived being shot twice at Dunlavin and staunched his own wounds; a brave girl helped hide and treat him, bringing his brother to carry him home. Captain Saunders later tried to finish him off at his mother's house but was driven back, and Michael Dwyer took the wounded man to his mountain hideout to recover.

    Read the passage

    Among the victims was a man named Prendergast. In his case the ball made two orifices, but he had sufficient presence of mind before he lost consciousness, to detach his cravat and stop the blood of one orifice with it, while his clenched hand acted as a styptic for the other. A brave girl happened to see the motion, and she found an opportunity to staunch the wounds with her shawl, while she went off to Prendergast’s house, whence she presently returned with his brother, leading a horse and cart. They put the wounded man into the cart, covered him with bloody straw and carried him back to his widowed mother’s home. News reached Saunders that “some of the croppies were getting alive again,” so he sent back the Ancient Britons to finish their work, and hack and gash any of the bodies which might possibly harbour a spark of life. He then proceeded to Prendergast’s house, and genially addressed the widow. “Well, widow, I hear that that croppy scoundrel of a son of yours is living still.” “Yes, your honour,” said the poor woman, “the Lord has been pleased to grant the poor boy a longer day.” “Come on now,” said his Honour, forcing his way into the house, “I will put him out of pain; he can’t possibly recover, and your time can’t be taken up by attending on him.” The poor mother found strength to hold the great brute back, while the wounded man was conveyed out of the house by some of the neighbours. An angry crowd gathered round the Captain, and he thought it better to get away. At nightfall Michael Dwyer came down from the hills and carried off young Prendergast to his eyrie. And here during many months the wounded boy was nursed by Michael Dwyer and his “Mountain Mary”—and he lived to marry the brave girl who had saved his life.

    And this, did space permit, would be the appropriate place to tell the story of one of the bravest women of ’Ninety-Eight—Mrs. Michael Dwyer (we have already met her name in connection with Anne Devlin, her husband’s niece). She was a beautiful Wicklow girl, the daughter of a “strong” farmer named Doyle; but she left all the comforts of her father’s well-stocked farm to share the outlaw’s “wild and uncertain life in hill and vale, in mountain cave and fastness.” The story of her romantic marriage is the subject of a well-known and very stirring ballad which tells how:—

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 16

13. The Battle of Antrim, 7 June 1798

    near Antrim · town · Antrim · 1798

    Henry Joy McCracken, having become Commander-in-Chief of the northern insurgent forces only days before the rising, led the attack at Antrim on 7 June 1798, which was fought and lost, forcing McCracken and his followers into hiding in the hills.

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    It is a matter of history now that Henry Joy McCracken became Commander-in-Chief of the Insurgent forces in the north only three or four days before the outbreak, and only in consequence of the arrest of Dickson, the original commander-in-chief, and the cowardice of the gentleman appointed to replace him. All that one man could do to make the most of a situation, even then desperate, was done by McCracken. But it was of no avail. On June the 7th the battle of Antrim was fought and lost; and Harry McCracken, and Jamie Hope and the faithful few who had refused to lower the Banner of Green were on the hills “on their keeping.”

    And now it will be our privilege to hear Mary McCracken herself, tell the end of Henry’s story in her own most moving words:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

14. Trial of Henry Joy McCracken at the Exchange, Belfast

    The Exchange · street · Dublin · 1798

    On 17 July 1798 Henry Joy McCracken was tried for his life at the Exchange in Belfast, with Colonel Montgomery presiding; witnesses gave testimony later shown to be fabricated, and McCracken refused to betray his comrades under pressure from Pollock.

    Read the passage

    “I arose at six, and set out in a carriage for the place where Miss Toomb was then staying with a lady, near Lisburn. I endeavoured to keep up her spirits as well as I could, fearing from the state of grief and anxiety she was in, she would be unable to give evidence. She came with me, and on arriving in town, July the 17th, I proceeded to the Exchange, where the trial was just commenced. The moment I set my eyes on him I was struck with the extraordinary serenity and composure of his look. This was no time to think about such things, but yet I could not help gazing on him; it seemed to me that I had never seen him look so well, so full of healthful bloom, so free from the slightest trace of care or trouble, as at that moment, when he was perfectly aware of his approaching fate.

    “I sat very near the table when the trial was going on. Colonel Montgomery was President. The first witness called was Minis. The other witness, James Beck, a poor miserable-looking creature, swore that he had seen him at Antrim, and knew him by a mark on his throat, which mark was not seen until his neckerchief was taken off.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

15. Anne Devlin forced to view Emmet's blood on scaffold, Thomas Street

    Thomas Street · street · Dublin · 1803

    The day after Emmet's execution, Anne Devlin was taken from Kilmainham to Dublin Castle for examination, and the gaoler ordered the coach to stop at the scaffold in Thomas Street so she was forced to see Emmet's blood still visible on the boards.

    Read the passage

    “She was in Kilmainham, a close prisoner, when Robert Emmet was executed. She was kept locked up in a solitary cell, and indeed always, with a few exceptions, was kept so during her confinement the first year. The day after his execution she was taken from gaol to the Castle, to be examined, through Thomas Street. The gaoler had given orders to stop the coach at the scaffold where Robert Emmet was executed. It was stopped there, and she was forced to look at his blood, which was still plain enough to be seen sprinkled over the deal boards.

    “At the latter end of her confinement, some gentlemen belonging to the Castle had come to the gaol and seen her in her cell. She told them her sad story, and it was told by them to the lord lieutenant. From that time her treatment was altogether different; she was not only allowed the range of the woman’s ward, but was permitted to go outside the prison, and three or four times, accompanied by her sister and Mrs. Dwyer and one of the turnkeys, was taken to the Spa at Lucan for the benefit of her health; for she was then crippled in her limbs, more dead than alive, hardly able to move hand or foot.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 14

    As the companion tells it

    On this street in Dublin, the day after Robert Emmet was executed in 1803, a coach was stopped at the scaffold and the woman inside it was made to look at his blood. The woman was Anne Devlin. She had been held in Kilmainham, a close prisoner, kept locked in a solitary cell through most of the first year of her confinement. The day after the execution she was being taken from the gaol to Dublin Castle for examination, and the route led through Thomas Street. The gaoler had given orders to stop the coach at the scaffold where Emmet was executed. It was stopped, and she was forced to look at his blood, which was still plain enough to be seen sprinkled over the deal boards. Toward the latter end of her confinement, gentlemen belonging to the Castle came to the gaol and saw her in her cell. She told them her sad story, and they told it to the lord lieutenant. From that time her treatment changed. She was given the range of the woman's ward and allowed outside the prison. Three or four times, accompanied by her sister and Mrs. Dwyer and one of the turnkeys, she was taken to the Spa at Lucan for her health. She was crippled in her limbs, more dead than alive, hardly able to move hand or foot.

16. Betrayal arranged via Magan's house on Usher's Island

    Usher's Island · street · Dublin · 1798

    Miss Moore arranged for Lord Edward's reception at Francis Magan's house on Usher's Island, entering via stables in Island Street, unaware Magan was an informer who alerted Major Sirr, leading to a confrontation in which Sirr was wounded.

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    About May the 16th, Lord Edward being then under their roof (while the Government Proclamation offered £1,000 reward for his arrest), a carpenter called Tuite happened to be doing some repairs in Dublin Castle. He heard the Under-Secretary, Cooke, say that James Moore’s house was to be searched, and he made an excuse to leave the Castle and warn Mr. Moore. As the latter had not only Lord Edward—but a commissariat for about 500 men on his premises—he thought the further he could get away from Dublin the better; so he fled to the banks of the Boyne, leaving his wife and daughter to provide for the Commander-in-Chief. Miss Moore, who, of course, had no reason to distrust Francis Magan, thought that there could be no safer place for the fugitive than in Magan’s house on Usher’s Island. She accordingly arranged with Magan for his reception there, and “for safety sake” it was suggested by Magan that, instead of coming in by his front door, the party accompanying Lord Edward were to seek admittance through his stables in Island Street. On the evening determined on, Mrs. and Miss Moore, accompanied by the latter’s “French tutor” (Lord Edward), and escorted by Mr. Moore’s confidential clerk, Gallagher, and his friend, Palmer (in reality Lord Edward’s bodyguard), set off for an evening stroll. They were met by Major Sirr and his men, who had (as, of course, we know now) got the word from Magan. A conflict ensued, in which Sirr fell to the ground and Gallagher was wounded, but Lord Edward and Miss Moore got off. She conveyed him to Murphy’s, the feather merchant’s, and returned home satisfied of his safety for the present.

    The next day Magan called on her, ostensibly to enquire why his expected guest had not turned up, and professing the most genuine concern for him. Miss Moore told him the whole story of their encounter of the night before, and, still, of course, suspecting nothing, informed Magan that Lord Edward was at Murphy’s. Magan at once communicated the tidings to his employers—and that evening Lord Edward was taken up.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 15

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on this street, on Usher's Island in Dublin, a young woman named Miss Moore walked into a trap she never saw. It was May 1798. The Government had offered £1,000 for Lord Edward Fitzgerald's arrest, and he was hiding under James Moore's roof. A carpenter named Tuite, doing repairs in Dublin Castle, overheard the Under-Secretary Cooke say that Moore's house was to be searched. He slipped away to warn them. James Moore had not only Lord Edward but supplies for about 500 men on the premises, so he fled to the banks of the Boyne, leaving his wife and daughter to look after the fugitive. Miss Moore had no reason to distrust Francis Magan, whose house stood here on Usher's Island. She arranged with him for Lord Edward's reception, and Magan suggested that instead of coming through his front door, the party should seek admittance through his stables in Island Street. On the evening they chose, Mrs. and Miss Moore set off with Lord Edward, passing as their French tutor, escorted by Gallagher, Moore's confidential clerk, and Palmer, in reality Lord Edward's bodyguard. Major Sirr and his men were waiting. They had got the word from Magan. Sirr fell to the ground in the conflict, and Gallagher was wounded, but Lord Edward and Miss Moore got away. She took him to Murphy's, the feather merchant's, and went home satisfied he was safe. The next day Magan called on her, asking why his guest had never arrived, full of concern. Miss Moore, suspecting nothing, told him the whole story and said Lord Edward was at Murphy's. Magan passed the information to his employers, and that evening Lord Edward was taken.

17. Neilson's Trial in Dublin

    Dublin · city · Dublin · 1798

    On June 26th, 1798, bills of indictment for high treason were sent up against Neilson and others; brought heavily ironed into court, he refused counsel and defiantly denounced the authority of the court.

    Read the passage

    On June the 26th, bills of indictment were sent up for high treason against Samuel Neilson, the two Sheareses, John McCann, William Michael Byrne, and Oliver Bond. Counsel were named by all the prisoners except Neilson, who refused to name any. We find in the Life of Grattan by his son a graphic description of the scene in court to which Neilson was brought heavily ironed. “When brought into court the noise of his entrance was like the march of men in irons. He was called on to plead, and asked if he had anything to say; he replied in a stentorian voice, ‘No! I have been robbed of everything—I could not fee counsel; my property—everything has been taken from me,’ and he turned away. But he came again to the front of the dock, and said, ‘For myself I have nothing to say; _I scorn your power, and despise that authority that it shall ever be my pride to have opposed_; but I may say—not that I value it—why am I kept with these weighty irons on me, so heavy that three ordinary men could scarcely carry them? Is it your law that I should be placed in irons, and in such irons?’”

    The execution of the Sheareses took place on July 14th, that of McCann on the 19th. In order to save the lives of Byrne and Bond, Neilson with some others of the State prisoners consented to enter into terms with Government. Byrne, in spite of these negotiations, was executed on July 28th, and Oliver Bond died, under very suspicious circumstances, after having been respited.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Dublin, you are near where Samuel Neilson stood trial for high treason in 1798. On June 26th of that year, bills of indictment went up against Neilson, the two Sheareses, John McCann, William Michael Byrne, and Oliver Bond. All the prisoners named counsel except Neilson, who refused. He was brought into court heavily ironed, the noise of his entrance like the march of men in irons. When called on to plead, he said he had been robbed of everything and could not fee counsel, that his property had been taken from him. Then he came back to the front of the dock and said, for himself he had nothing to say, that he scorned their power and despised that authority that it would ever be his pride to have opposed. He asked why he was kept in irons so heavy that three ordinary men could scarcely carry them. The Sheareses were executed on July 14th, McCann on the 19th. Neilson and some other state prisoners consented to terms with the government to save the lives of Byrne and Bond. Byrne was executed on July 28th regardless, and Bond died under very suspicious circumstances after being respited.

18. Battle of Ballynahinch and Betsy Grey's charge

    near Ballynahinch · town · Down · 1798

    At the Battle of Ballynahinch, Betsy Grey, dressed in green silk and mounted on her mare, rode beside Munroe leading charges, but the battle ended in defeat for the United Irish forces on her side of the field.

    Read the passage

    When the men of Down took the field in June, ’98, Betsy sought a place in their embattled ranks. Father and brother and lover set themselves to oppose her, and, as the best means of escaping her importunities, George and Willie stole away to the muster at Ballynahinch, without letting her know of their departure. When she discovered it, she went out into the yard, yoked her mare to a cart, filled the latter, with bread, butter and cheese, and gallantly set off unaccompanied. She arrived at the hill of Ednavady on the night of June the 12th, and the next day took part in the battle. The popular memory has preserved a vision of her, a bright-faced, beautiful girl, dressed in green silk, mounted on her gallant mare, and brandishing her burnished sword above her head, while side by side with Munroe she led one victorious charge after another.

    Unfortunately the success attained by the contingents on her side of the field was not general, and the close of the battle saw the patriots routed from the field.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 15

19. Elizabeth Emmet Dies of a Broken Heart in Donnybrook

    Donnybrook · parish · Dublin · 1803

    While her son Robert stood trial for his life at Green Street, his mother Elizabeth Emmet lay dead of a broken heart in her widowed home at Donnybrook.

    Read the passage

    I have known one woman who, having been able to read, with dry eyes, the melting tale of Sarah Curran’s “Broken Heart,” and to listen, without a sob, to the voice of Sarah’s young lover, so soon to be stilled for ever, pleading from the brink of “the cold and silent grave,” for the last charity of the world’s silence, broke into a passion of weeping as the tragedy, which was Robert Emmet’s life-story, swept through every stage of gathering pathos to the almost intolerable poignancy of its climax—the picture, conjured up by Madden, of the mother who lay dead, of a broken heart, in her widowed home in Donnybrook, while her last-born son, her Benjamin, stood in the dock in Green Street on trial for his life.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 2

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Donnybrook, this parish holds a story from 1803. While Robert Emmet stood trial for his life at Green Street, his mother Elizabeth Emmet lay dead of a broken heart in her widowed home here. Robert was her last-born son, her Benjamin. One writer described this as the almost intolerable poignancy of the climax of Robert Emmet's life-story, the mother dead while her youngest son faced the dock.

20. Henry Joy McCracken captured and visited at Carrickfergus

    Carrickfergus · townland · Antrim · 1798

    Following his capture on the way to the coast, Henry Joy McCracken was held at Carrickfergus, where his father and sister obtained permission to visit him in his cell; Mary saw a line from Young's 'Night Thoughts' written on the wall.

    Read the passage

    “It was on Sunday afternoon, July 8th, my birthday, that we got intelligence of Harry’s capture.... My father and I set off immediately for Carrickfergus, and with difficulty obtained permission to visit him; the officer, who accompanied us politely standing at a distance, not to prevent our conversation. Having desired me not to use any solicitations on his account; and after expressing to me his wishes on many matters, he desired me to tell my brother John to come to him. My mother had sent him a favourite book of his, Young’s ‘Night Thoughts,’ and I observed a line from it written on the wall of his cell:

    “‘A friend’s worth all the hazard we can run.’

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

21. Major Sirr searches the Priory and arrests scene at Rathfarnham

    Rathfarnham · townland · Dublin · 1803

    Major Sirr and a party of yeomanry arrived at the Priory near Rathfarnham with warrants to search for papers and arrest Sarah Curran, finding her still in bed; she was thrown into violent convulsions while her sister destroyed papers in Emmet's handwriting.

    Read the passage

    “The writer of the letter found in Mr. Emmet’s pocket is discovered. She proves to be Mr. Curran’s youngest daughter. This discovery has given rise to some very unpleasant and distressing scenes. It became indispensably necessary to search the apartment of the lady for papers. She resided at her father’s house in the country near Rathfarnham, within a short distance of Butterfield Lane. Major Sirr was sent there this morning with a letter addressed to Mr. Curran, of which I send a copy inclosed. Unfortunately, Mr. Curran was not at home, and still more unfortunately the young lady was not up, tho’ the rest of the family (two other daughters and a son) were assembled at breakfast, so that the Major entered the room where she was still in bed. This circumstance occasioned a scene of great confusion and distress, and was also productive of some inconvenience, for whilst the Major and the other daughter were giving assistance to Mr. Emmet’s correspondent—who was thrown into violent convulsions—the eldest Miss Curran continued to destroy some papers, the few scraps of which that were saved were in Mr. Emmet’s hand-writing.

    “I have the satisfaction to add that Mr. Curran is satisfied that Government has acted throughout with great personal delicacy towards him, and that on his part he has acted fairly towards Government, and that he was unquestionably ignorant of the connection between his daughter and Mr. Emmet.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 13

22. Rose Hope smuggles arms through Dublin's Liberty

    near The Liberties · street · Dublin · 1803

    While her husband James Hope organised for Emmet, Rose Hope carried arms and ammunition hidden under her cloak through the streets of Dublin's Liberty, even while carrying her baby. She narrowly avoided detection during these missions.

    Read the passage

    “In 1803, a short time after Henry Howley’s arrest, and the death of Hanlon, who was shot by him, while the soldiers were bringing Hanlon’s body on a door, through a street in the Liberty, my wife was passing, with her youngest child in her arms, having under her cloak, a blunderbuss and a case of pistols, which she was taking to the house of Denis Lambert Redmond, who suffered afterwards. She stepped into a shop, and when the crowd had passed, she went on, and executed her orders. On another occasion, she was sent to a house in the Liberty, where a quantity of ball-cartridges had been lodged, to carry them away, to prevent ruin being brought on the house and its inhabitants. She went to the house, put them in a pillow-case, and emptied the contents into the canal, at that part of it which supplies the basin.”

    “At the death of Pitt, the system underwent a change. The Castle spies were discharged, and the State prisoners set at liberty. My wife sent in a memorial to the Duke of Bedford, in her own name, acknowledging that I had fought on the side of the people, and had been driven like thousands, unwillingly to do so.” As a consequence, Hope and his family were allowed to return to the North.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 17

    As the companion tells it

    Somewhere about The Liberties, in 1803, Rose Hope walked these streets carrying arms for the rebellion under her cloak, her youngest child in her arms. Her husband James Hope was organising for Emmet, and Rose took a blunderbuss and a case of pistols to the house of Denis Lambert Redmond, who suffered afterwards. She was passing through a street in the Liberty just as soldiers carried the body of Hanlon on a door, Hanlon having been shot by Henry Howley. She stepped into a shop, let the crowd pass, then went on and delivered the weapons. On another occasion she was sent to a house where ball-cartridges had been lodged, to remove them before ruin fell on the house and its inhabitants. She put the cartridges in a pillow-case and emptied them into the canal. After Pitt's death the Castle spies were discharged and State prisoners set at liberty. Rose sent a memorial to the Duke of Bedford in her own name, acknowledging that James had fought on the side of the people and been driven, like thousands, unwillingly to do so. The family were then allowed to return to the North.

23. Sarah Sheares Pleads for Her Husband's Life at Lord Clare's Door

    Ely Place · street · Dublin · 1798

    During the trial on July 13th, Sarah Sheares sat outside Lord Clare's hall door in a sedan-chair, and when she finally saw him she fell at his feet begging for her husband Henry's life, but to no avail.

    Read the passage

    The truth was that Lord Clare was in terror of his enemies escaping from his hands—for the most powerful influences were at work for their rescue, and the evidence against Henry Sheares was not sufficient, as the common phrase goes, “to hang a dog on.” Miss Maria Steele used her influence with her devoted admirer, Captain Horatio Cornwallis, nephew of the Lord Lieutenant, to secure the brothers’ pardon; and to his nephew’s pleading, supported by that of Julia Sheares, Lord Cornwallis, “anxious that his first act in Ireland should not be a sanguinary one,” was about to yield, when Lord Clare, who was present, intervened. All day long on July 13th, while the trial dragged its weary length through the hot and crowded court, Sarah Sheares, poor Henry’s wife, sat in a sedan-chair at Lord Clare’s hall door; when at length she saw him, she fell at his feet on the steps of his door, clasping his knees and begging her husband’s life from his hands. It was all in vain.

    And what of the mother all these dreadful weeks? They had not dared to tell her that Henry was in any danger. They told her that he had been advised to keep away, and would return when all was safe again. For John’s fate she was in some measure prepared, but she hoped, with all her mother’s heart, that it might be averted. A heart-breaking incident was related to Dr. Madden by a relation of the Sheareses:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on Ely Place, on the 13th of July, 1798, Sarah Sheares sat all day in a sedan-chair outside Lord Clare's hall door. Her husband Henry was on trial that day, and the evidence against him was weak, as people said, not enough to hang a dog on. Powerful influences were at work for the brothers' rescue. Miss Maria Steele used her influence with Captain Horatio Cornwallis, nephew of the Lord Lieutenant, to secure a pardon, and Julia Sheares added her own pleading. Lord Cornwallis was anxious that his first act in Ireland should not be a bloody one, and was about to yield, when Lord Clare intervened. When Sarah finally saw Lord Clare, she fell at his feet on the steps of his door, clasping his knees and begging for her husband's life from his hands. It was all in vain. Henry and his brother John were not saved. Their mother had not been told Henry was in any danger, only that he had been advised to keep away and would return when all was safe again.

24. Tone's burial at Bodenstown Churchyard

    Bodenstown · townland · Kildare · 1798

    Wolfe Tone's body lay under the green sod in Bodenstown Churchyard by the time his final letter to Matilda was delivered, following his death after capture at the Battle of Lough Swilly and imprisonment.

    Read the passage

    His body was lying under the green sod in Bodenstown Churchyard when his last message to her was delivered. How did she ever bear to read the lines he penned in his prison cell, when even now at this distance of time, we who knew him not at all can hardly see them for our tears?

    “Provost Prison—Dublin Barracks, “_Le 20 Brumaire, an 7_ (10 Nov.’98).

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 4

25. Emmet's Final Journey to Thomas Street

    Thomas Street · street · Dublin · 1803

    Through seething crowds, the carriage bearing Robert Emmet to his execution moved through Thomas Street under a strong guard of horse and foot, with witnesses struck by his fortitude.

    Read the passage

    And yet is there not comfort to be found in the thought that the mother’s loving spirit was liberated in time from the prison of the suffering flesh, to be made free of all the places out of which her boy’s anguish called to her? If, as was Robert Emmet’s fond hope, “the dear shade of his venerated father” looked down upon him, where he stood in the dock, ready to die for the principles which that father had first taught him, surely the soul of the mother was not far away. Surely it bore him company during the long nerve-wrecking, exhausting hours of the trial,[4] giving him the refreshment which the brutality of his captors and judges denied; surely it was close at hand when his poor body, on which the fetters of death were so soon to be laid, had to submit for the last time to the more galling fetters of the abominable gaoler of Newgate. Could we bear to think of what Robert Emmet was made to suffer during his last night on earth, if the conviction that his mother’s spirit hovered near him, did not bring us comfort? Brought to Newgate from Green Street about eleven o’clock at night, he was heavily ironed by Gregg, the gaoler, and placed in one of the condemned cells. About an hour after midnight an order came from the Secretary at the Castle that the prisoner must be at once conveyed to Kilmainham. What a journey was that through the darkness of the autumn night! What a journey back from Kilmainham to Thomas Street the next day, when through the seething crowds, the carriage which bore the young martyr to the place of his execution moved in the midst of its strong guard of horse and foot! Even his enemies, looking upon him, were fain to confess that never had they seen a man go forth “to die like this”—with such “unostentatious fortitude,” such marvellous absence of all signs of fear, such a conviction of the glory of dying “for Ireland.” Did the dear Lord make it easy for him “to die like this,” by permitting his mother to leave her place in heaven for a time to be with her boy in the supreme hours?

    Footnote 4:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 2

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on Thomas Street, the carriage bearing Robert Emmet moved to his execution in 1803. He had been tried at Green Street, and after the long nerve-wrecking hours of the trial, he was brought to Newgate about eleven o'clock at night. Gregg, the gaoler, heavily ironed him and placed him in one of the condemned cells. About an hour after midnight, an order came from the Secretary at the Castle that the prisoner must be at once conveyed to Kilmainham. That was a journey through the darkness of the autumn night. And then the journey back from Kilmainham to this street the next day, when through the seething crowds, the carriage which bore him to the place of his execution moved in the midst of its strong guard of horse and foot. Even his enemies, looking upon him, were fain to confess that never had they seen a man go forth to die like this, with such unostentatious fortitude, such marvellous absence of all signs of fear, such a conviction of the glory of dying for Ireland. His fond hope was that the dear shade of his venerated father looked down upon him where he stood in the dock, ready to die for the principles that his father had first taught him. The thought that his mother's spirit was not far away, bearing him company through the exhausting hours and the brutality of his captors and judges, brings comfort to those who bear to think of what he was made to suffer during his last night on earth.

26. Miss Moore's family home on Thomas Street sheltering Lord Edward

    Thomas Street · street · Dublin · 1798

    Miss Moore, daughter of wealthy merchant James Moore of Thomas Street, carried messages for the United Irishmen and sheltered Lord Edward Fitzgerald at her family's house while he posed as her French tutor, hiding from a £1,000 government reward.

    Read the passage

    She was often employed in bringing messages to the societies from Lord Edward, and not unfrequently passed through the streets in Dr. Adrien’s carriage, as a patient, with her arm bandaged and blood on her clothes. Lord Edward was a great friend of her father’s, and stayed at their house more than once, during the time he was in hiding, passing as her French tutor.

    About May the 16th, Lord Edward being then under their roof (while the Government Proclamation offered £1,000 reward for his arrest), a carpenter called Tuite happened to be doing some repairs in Dublin Castle. He heard the Under-Secretary, Cooke, say that James Moore’s house was to be searched, and he made an excuse to leave the Castle and warn Mr. Moore. As the latter had not only Lord Edward—but a commissariat for about 500 men on his premises—he thought the further he could get away from Dublin the better; so he fled to the banks of the Boyne, leaving his wife and daughter to provide for the Commander-in-Chief. Miss Moore, who, of course, had no reason to distrust Francis Magan, thought that there could be no safer place for the fugitive than in Magan’s house on Usher’s Island. She accordingly arranged with Magan for his reception there, and “for safety sake” it was suggested by Magan that, instead of coming in by his front door, the party accompanying Lord Edward were to seek admittance through his stables in Island Street. On the evening determined on, Mrs. and Miss Moore, accompanied by the latter’s “French tutor” (Lord Edward), and escorted by Mr. Moore’s confidential clerk, Gallagher, and his friend, Palmer (in reality Lord Edward’s bodyguard), set off for an evening stroll. They were met by Major Sirr and his men, who had (as, of course, we know now) got the word from Magan. A conflict ensued, in which Sirr fell to the ground and Gallagher was wounded, but Lord Edward and Miss Moore got off. She conveyed him to Murphy’s, the feather merchant’s, and returned home satisfied of his safety for the present.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 15

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on Thomas Street stood the family home of Miss Moore, daughter of the wealthy merchant James Moore. In 1798 she carried messages for the United Irishmen, sometimes passing through the streets in Dr. Adrien's carriage as a patient, with her arm bandled and blood on her clothes. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was a great friend of her father's, and stayed at their house more than once while in hiding, passing as her French tutor. About May the 16th, with Lord Edward under their roof and the Government offering 1,000 pounds for his arrest, a carpenter called Tuite, doing repairs in Dublin Castle, heard the Under-Secretary Cooke say that James Moore's house was to be searched. Tuite made an excuse to leave the Castle and warned Mr. Moore. Since Moore had not only Lord Edward but a commissariat for about 500 men on his premises, he fled to the banks of the Boyne, leaving his wife and daughter to provide for the Commander-in-Chief. Miss Moore, having no reason to distrust Francis Magan, arranged for Lord Edward to be moved to Magan's house on Usher's Island, with entry through his stables in Island Street for safety. On the chosen evening, Mrs. and Miss Moore, accompanied by her French tutor and escorted by Gallagher and Palmer, who were really Lord Edward's bodyguard, set off as if for an evening stroll. They were met by Major Sirr and his men, who had got the word from Magan. A conflict ensued, Sirr fell to the ground, and Gallagher was wounded, but Lord Edward and Miss Moore got off. She conveyed him to Murphy's, the feather merchant's, and returned home satisfied of his safety for the present.

27. Arrest of the United Irish leaders at Oliver Bond's house

    Bridge Street · street · Dublin · 1798

    On March 12th, 1798, government forces, long informed through informers, swooped on the United Irish leadership. The arrest of the country delegates at Oliver Bond's house was followed the same day by the seizure of Emmet, Dr. MacNevin, Jackson and John Sweetman.

    Read the passage

    On March 12th, 1798, Government which had already been long in complete possession of the plans of the United Irishmen, through the treachery of Thomas Reynolds and others, and had allowed them to develop as suited its own purposes, suddenly swooped down on the leaders. The arrest of the country deputies at the house of Oliver Bond was followed the same day by the apprehension of Emmet, Dr. MacNevin, Jackson (Bond’s father-in-law) and John Sweetman at their several abodes.

    Jane Emmet had just tucked her little ones into their cots and given them their good-night kiss, when Alderman Carletown and his escort of soldiers invaded the quiet house in Stephen’s Green to carry off her children’s father. The loud knocking at the door, the peremptory demand for admission “in the king’s name” which heralded the entrance of those unbidden guests heralded also the closing of the peaceful happy years of Jane Emmet’s young wifehood and maternity. A new life was opening up before her, full of sorrows, and hardships and privations, and the gently nurtured lady was to discover in the reserves of her character the unsuspected materials of a heroine.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on Bridge Street, at Oliver Bond's house, the government struck the United Irish leadership on 12 March 1798. The authorities had long known the rebels' plans through the treachery of Thomas Reynolds and others, and had let those plans develop to suit their own purposes before they moved. That day they seized the country delegates gathered at Bond's house, and the same day took Emmet, Dr. MacNevin, Jackson, who was Bond's father-in-law, and John Sweetman at their own homes. Jane Emmet had just tucked her little ones into their cots and kissed them goodnight when Alderman Carletown and his soldiers invaded the quiet house in Stephen's Green to carry off her children's father. The demand for admission "in the king's name" heralded the end of her peaceful years of wifehood, and the beginning of sorrows that would reveal the unsuspected materials of a heroine.

28. Emmet's arrest at Mrs Palmer's house, Harold's Cross

    near Haroldscross · population centre · Dublin · 1803

    Robert Emmet, having risked escape to America to see Sarah Curran, hid at Mrs Palmer's house in Harold's Cross, from where he sent her a letter through Anne Devlin; Major Sirr captured him there on August 25.

    Read the passage

    It is quite certain that after the failure of the Insurrection of July 23rd, 1803, Emmet could have escaped to America, had not he risked his all for the sake of one last meeting with his love. He came back to an old lodging of his at the house of Mrs. Palmer at Harold’s Cross, and from this place he sent a letter through Anne Devlin to Sarah Curran.

    A few days later, Government received information that Emmet was at Mrs. Palmer’s. On August 25, Major Sirr rode out there and captured him, bringing him back handcuffed, to Dublin Castle, whence he was committed to Kilmainham Gaol on the charge of High Treason.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 13

29. Gallagher wounded the night Lord Edward was captured, betrayed by his wound

    Thomas Street · street · Dublin · 1798

    Gallagher, a bodyguard of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, was wounded during the encounter with Major Sirr's men on the night Lord Edward was to meet Magan, and was later identified and sentenced to execution because of this wound.

    Read the passage

    Another brave woman whose _Nunc Dimittis_ was sung in a foreign land was Mrs. Gallagher. Her husband was a confidential clerk of James Moore’s, and he often acted as one of Lord Edward’s bodyguard when the Chief went abroad for any purpose during the weeks he was “on his keeping.” On the night on which Lord Edward was going to Magan’s and was met by Major Sirr, Gallagher was wounded in the encounter, which ensued with the Major’s men. He was afterwards identified through this wound, and ordered for execution. He managed, it is said, to save his life at the foot of the scaffold by his possession of the Masonic signal. He was then taken back to prison. During all this time the executions were proceeding in Thomas Street, and the blood from the block on which “the rebels” were beheaded and quartered flowed in such quantities that it clogged the sewers, and was licked up by the dogs. The Lady Lieutenant, passing one day, fainted at the horrible sight; and at her urgent entreaties the executions were stopped. Transportation to one of the Penal Colonies was substituted for the death-sentence. Gallagher was conveyed from his prison to one of the convict ships, heavily ironed. But by a special grace the irons were taken off him while he bade farewell to his wife, who had made her way on board to see him for the last time. She stayed on until nightfall, and before she took her departure she managed to convey to her husband one end of a coil of rope she had concealed under her cloak. The other end she carried ashore with her, as she rowed back. After her departure Gallagher was about to be ironed again, but he pleaded so eloquently for “one minute more” that it was granted him. That minute was sufficient for him to leap into the dark waters—and be towed ashore by his faithful wife. He subsequently made his escape to France in a lugger of smuggled salt—and died, in 1813, a wealthy ship-broker of Bordeaux.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 16

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on Thomas Street in 1798, the executions were so relentless that the blood from the block where rebels were beheaded and quartered clogged the sewers and was licked up by dogs. Gallagher, a bodyguard of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, had been wounded the night Lord Edward was captured on his way to meet Magan, when Major Sirr's men closed in. Gallagher was identified through that wound and ordered for execution. He is said to have saved himself at the foot of the scaffold by giving a Masonic signal, and was taken back to prison instead. By then the Lady Lieutenant had fainted at the sight of the executions here and pleaded for them to stop, so transportation was substituted for death. Gallagher was loaded onto a convict ship in irons. His wife came aboard to say farewell, and the irons were removed for the visit. Before she left at nightfall she slipped him one end of a rope she had hidden under her cloak, carrying the other end ashore with her. He begged for one more minute before being ironed again, leapt into the dark water, and she towed him to shore. He escaped to France in a smuggler's lugger and died in 1813 a wealthy ship-broker of Bordeaux.

30. Anne Devlin discovered as pauper washerwoman near John's Lane

    near John's Lane · street · Waterford · 1842

    In 1842, Dr. Madden sought out an old washerwoman living in poverty in a stable-yard off John's Lane, who turned out to be Anne Devlin, the only survivor who could recount the events after Emmet's rising. She had helped Rosie Hope keep house for Emmet at Butterfield Lane.

    Read the passage

    In 1842 when Dr. Madden was engaged in his researches for his memoir of Robert Emmet, he was directed to a certain old washerwoman, called Campbell, then living in great poverty and obscurity in a stable-yard off John’s Lane. This old woman, he was told, was the only one then living, in all probability, who could give an authentic account of what happened on the night of July the 23rd, 1803, after the flight of the leaders and the rout of their followers.

    How did she come to have this information? For the reason that she had helped Rosie Hope to cook and keep house for Robert Emmet and his companions in the establishment he had leased (in the name of Robert Ellis) in Butterfield Lane, Rathfarnham, during the months of active preparation for the Rising. Her father was a well-to-do dairyman, of the neighbourhood, and both he and his sons, as well as their kinsmen, Michael Dwyer, the Wicklow “outlaw,” and Arthur Devlin, were deep in Robert Emmet’s plans. His daughter’s housewifely skill had been devoted to the Cause in the same spirit as her male relatives’ soldier-service. Her maiden name, which Dr. Madden’s informant had previously omitted to mention, was—Anne Devlin.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 14

31. Charles Teeling Arrested by Lord Castlereagh at Lisburn

    near Lisburn · town · Antrim · 1796

    Lord Castlereagh, feigning friendship, lured Charles Teeling into the Marquis of Hertford's gated grounds in Lisburn where he was arrested by an armed guard, while his father Luke Teeling was only briefly allowed to see him before being sent away.

    Read the passage

    It was not _the worst_ at all events. No fatal accident had taken her boy from her—but what really had happened it was difficult enough to make out from the servant’s narrative. She could hardly believe that Lord Castlereagh, an old friend of the Teeling family, who was under the most real obligations to Mr. Teeling for his help and support on many occasions, could really have her boy now under arrest in the house of his father-in-law, the Marquis of Hertford. Lord Castlereagh, according to the groom, had with his usual appearance of cordiality and friendship joined the master and Master Charles as they rode up the main street of the town, but when they came to the Marquis’s gates, Master Charles had been asked by his lordship to accompany him. As soon as he had entered the gates, these were closed and an armed guard had suddenly appeared. The master had demanded admission, and this, after a time, was granted. He was only allowed a few minutes with his son. Then he had come out, and leaving orders with the groom to lead home Master Charles’s horse, he had continued his journey alone.

    She was not left long in doubt of the truth of the old servant’s extraordinary tale. Very shortly afterwards she saw Lord Castlereagh himself enter her house, accompanied by a military guard. Her youngest son, John, a boy of fourteen, daring to demand by what authority the house was thus forcibly entered, saw a pistol presented at his breast, and himself compelled to accompany Castlereagh and his minions in their search through the house for treasonable (?) papers. “My brother,” Charles tells us in his “Narrative,” “conducted himself on this occasion with a firmness and composure that could hardly have been expected from a lad of his years.” It is regrettable that he does not mention the name of the sister “who evinced the most heroic courage; she was my junior, and, with the gentlest, possessed the noblest soul; she has been the solace of her family in all subsequent afflictions, and seemed to have been given as a blessing by Heaven, to counterpoise the ills they were doomed to suffer.” One guesses, however, from the deep affection entertained for her by Charles all through the after years, that this heroic sister was her mother’s namesake, Mary.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

32. Emmet's villa at Rathfarnham and the plan for French aid

    Rathfarnham · townland · Dublin · 1795

    Before leaving for America, Tone and Russell visited Thomas Addis Emmet at his villa in Rathfarnham, where Emmet showed them a study he would dedicate to their meetings if Ireland were ever emancipated. There the three friends resolved that Tone would seek French assistance for Irish independence.

    Read the passage

    He determined to go to America. But he had no intention of remaining there. Before he left Dublin, Russell and he walked out to see Thomas Addis Emmet in his charming villa at Rathfarnham. The master of the house showed his guests “a little study of an elliptical shape which he said he would consecrate to their meetings, if ever they lived to see their country emancipated.” Even in that solemn moment, Tone could not resist the temptation to rally poor Russell, who was doubtless looking more solemn than usual, in his grief at the near parting. But, though Emmet entered into the spirit of the jest, they all felt as much as Russell the seriousness of the moment, and it was a very thoughtful trio who walked back to town together, listening to Tone’s plans. Both Russell and Emmet agreed with the latter that his promise to Government was fulfilled by his going into exile. As to his future conduct after his landing in America he had given no guarantee. His intention was “immediately on his arrival in Philadelphia to wait on the French Minister, to detail to him fully, the situation of affairs in Ireland, to endeavour to obtain a recommendation to the French Government, and if he succeeded so far, to leave his family in America, and to set off instantly for Paris, and apply in the name of his country for the assistance of France in order to assert Ireland’s independence.”[65] The three friends were standing in a little triangular field while this conversation took place, and when they had shaken hands over the resolution that was implied in it, Emmet pointed out that “it was in one exactly like it in Switzerland, William Tell and his associates planned the downfall of the tyranny of Austria.”

    Footnote 65:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 4

33. McCracken paraded under guard at Castle Place, Belfast

    Castle Place · street · Dublin · 1798

    On being brought as a prisoner to Belfast, Henry Joy McCracken was displayed under a strong military escort in the middle of Castle Place, where his sisters could not reach him to speak.

    Read the passage

    “We remained all night in Carrickfergus, and tried the next morning to see him again; but were not admitted. We saw him, however, through the window of his cell, when he gave me a ring, with a green shamrock engraved on the outside, and the words, ‘Remember Orr,’ on the inside, which he desired me to give to his mother. Since her death it has remained with me. On the 16th, he was brought in a prisoner to Belfast, in the evening. My sister and I immediately set out to try if we could see him. He was then standing, with a strong escort of soldiers who were drawn up on the middle of Castle place. We could not speak to him there. He was then taken to the artillery barracks in Ann Street.”

    After a brutal refusal from Colonel Durham, the sisters at length obtained, from the humanity of Colonel Barber, admission to their brother. At this interview Harry requested that his cousins, Mrs. Holmes and Miss Mary Toomb, should be called as witnesses on his behalf.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

34. Midnight Order to Kilmainham

    Kilmainham · townland · Dublin · 1803

    About an hour after midnight an order came from the Secretary at Dublin Castle that Robert Emmet must be conveyed at once to Kilmainham, beginning a fraught nocturnal journey.

    Read the passage

    And yet is there not comfort to be found in the thought that the mother’s loving spirit was liberated in time from the prison of the suffering flesh, to be made free of all the places out of which her boy’s anguish called to her? If, as was Robert Emmet’s fond hope, “the dear shade of his venerated father” looked down upon him, where he stood in the dock, ready to die for the principles which that father had first taught him, surely the soul of the mother was not far away. Surely it bore him company during the long nerve-wrecking, exhausting hours of the trial,[4] giving him the refreshment which the brutality of his captors and judges denied; surely it was close at hand when his poor body, on which the fetters of death were so soon to be laid, had to submit for the last time to the more galling fetters of the abominable gaoler of Newgate. Could we bear to think of what Robert Emmet was made to suffer during his last night on earth, if the conviction that his mother’s spirit hovered near him, did not bring us comfort? Brought to Newgate from Green Street about eleven o’clock at night, he was heavily ironed by Gregg, the gaoler, and placed in one of the condemned cells. About an hour after midnight an order came from the Secretary at the Castle that the prisoner must be at once conveyed to Kilmainham. What a journey was that through the darkness of the autumn night! What a journey back from Kilmainham to Thomas Street the next day, when through the seething crowds, the carriage which bore the young martyr to the place of his execution moved in the midst of its strong guard of horse and foot! Even his enemies, looking upon him, were fain to confess that never had they seen a man go forth “to die like this”—with such “unostentatious fortitude,” such marvellous absence of all signs of fear, such a conviction of the glory of dying “for Ireland.” Did the dear Lord make it easy for him “to die like this,” by permitting his mother to leave her place in heaven for a time to be with her boy in the supreme hours?

    Footnote 4:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 2

35. Russell's grave in Downpatrick

    near Downpatrick · town · Down · 1803

    Thomas Russell was buried by Mary McCracken in Downpatrick, where his grave remained a site of pilgrimage and memory long after his execution in 1803.

    Read the passage

    It is through the eyes of Mary McCracken that we of to-day are permitted to see Thomas Russell. So living and breathing is the portrait, for which a woman’s love has mixed the colours, that though Russell has been lying for one hundred and fifteen years in the grave which she made for him in Downpatrick, it seems to us as if we might have passed him in the streets to-day.

    “A model of manly beauty, he was one of those favoured individuals whom one cannot pass in the street without being guilty of the rudeness of staring in the face while passing, and turning round to look at the receding figure. Though more than six feet high, his majestic stature was scarcely observed owing to the exquisite symmetry of his form. Martial in gait and demeanour, his appearance was not altogether that of a soldier. His dark and steady eye, compressed lip, and somewhat haughty bearing were occasionally strongly indicative of the camp; but in general the classic contour of his finely formed head, the expression of almost infantile sweetness which characterised his smile, and the benevolence that beamed in his fine countenance seemed to mark him out as one who was destined to be the ornament, grace and blessing of private life. His voice was deep-toned and melodious and though his conversational powers were not of the first order, yet, when roused to enthusiasm, he was sometimes more than eloquent. His manners were those of the finished gentleman, combined with that native grace which nothing but superiority of intellect can give. There was a reserved and somewhat haughty stateliness in his mien, which to those who did not know him had at first the appearance of pride; but as it gave way before the warmth and benevolence of his disposition, it soon became evident that the defect, if it were one, was caused by the too sensitive delicacy of a noble soul; and those who knew him loved him the more for his reserve, and thought they saw something attractive in the very repellingness of his manner.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

36. Ship wreck at South Rock, Ballywalter

    Ballywalter · townland · Down · 1763

    In 1763, Captain McCracken's young wife survived a shipwreck on the South Rock near Ballywalter while traveling home from Liverpool, wading a long distance in shallow water carrying two hundred guineas.

    Read the passage

    That steadfast character of John McCracken’s, which he transmitted to his children, was, it may be, a heritage from his mother—a stern old Covenanting lady, very strict in her religious beliefs, and most uncompromising in her principles. Her grandchildren, who had a keen sense of humour, used to relate with much zest, the damper put on their youthful enjoyment of Christmas by seeing their venerable grandmother seated ostentatiously at her spinning-wheel, her whole being one vehement protest against the Christmas observances and festivities. They were all in considerable awe of her, and when she uttered maledictions they felt certain they would come to pass. On one occasion, in 1763, Captain McCracken, having occasion to spend some time in Liverpool, to superintend the construction of a new vessel, brought his young wife with him, leaving their two children, Francis and Margaret, in the care of Grandmother McCracken. The venerable lady, who did not approve of “gadding about,” fervently prayed that her flighty daughter-in-law “might get a scare before coming back.” “And in truth I did, my dears,” the latter would say, as she told the story to her children afterwards, “my husband not wishing me to return on the new and untried vessel, sent me home before him. The ship was wrecked on the South Rock near Ballywalter, and we were only saved by getting into the boat; and I had to wade a long distance in shallow water, with a weight of two hundred guineas in my pocket.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

37. Yeomen kill Quin and his daughter in Antrim's Scotch Quarter

    near Antrim · town · Antrim · 1798

    After the rebel defeat at Antrim, yeomen turned on civilians, shelling houses in 'the Scotch quarter.' A man named Quin and his sixteen-year-old daughter fled toward Belmount but were pursued, shot dead, and buried in a shallow grave.

    Read the passage

    AFTER the defeat of the insurgent army at Antrim, the yeomen were let loose in the country, and the most terrible outrages committed. Cannon were trained on the houses situated in what is known as “the Scotch quarter,” in Antrim town, and a shot having struck one of them, the inmates of the neighbouring house, a man called Quin, and his lovely sixteen-year-old daughter, made their escape from their home, and crossing the garden, made towards Belmount. They were pursued by the yeomen, shot dead, and buried where they fell. So shallow was the grave made for them that for several days after, the long beautiful hair of the girl, which was only partially covered, was seen waving in the wind.

    The gentleman who related this incident to Dr. Madden noted that it excited more sympathy among the poor people than many horrid barbarities of the time. I think we can understand why it should be so. Even, at this distance of time, one cannot think of the long golden hair of the murdered girl, tossing in the wind above her shallow grave, without being gripped by the sense of pity and tragedy in a most poignant way—and feeling that here we have found the very heart of the sorrow of ’Ninety-Eight.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 16

38. Armstrong introduced to the Sheareses at Byrne's bookshop, Grafton Street

    Grafton Street · street · Dublin · 1798

    On May 10th, 1798, Captain John Warneford Armstrong, visiting from his camp at Lehaunstown, was introduced to Henry and then John Sheares at Byrne's bookseller's shop in Grafton Street, setting in motion the informer's infiltration of the brothers' confidence.

    Read the passage

    During one of his many conversations with Byrne the names of the Sheareses cropped up, and Byrne, completely deceived by the Captain’s specious professions, proposed to make them known to each other. In the afternoon of May the 10th, Captain Armstrong was seated in Byrne’s shop when Henry Sheares came in, and Byrne immediately made the introduction. Henry, however, was unwilling to enter into any conversation with the Captain and shortly afterwards made an excuse to leave him.

    Presently entered John, with his head full of plans for the Rising, which was fixed for the 23rd of the month. One of his greatest objects was to gain over the soldiers, and when Captain Armstrong was made known to him by the unsuspecting Byrne “as a true brother on whom he might depend,” it is not to be wondered at, if John looked on this meeting as the direct answer to his ardent prayers. The Captain professed to be as eager as John to secure the soldiers for the good cause, and after some preliminary discussion it was arranged to meet at the brother’s house in Baggot Street the following Sunday.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on Grafton Street stood Byrne's bookshop, where on the 10th of May 1798 a meeting took place that would prove fatal to the Sheares brothers. Captain John Warneford Armstrong, visiting from his camp at Lehaunstown, had been talking with Byrne, who was completely deceived by the captain's specious professions and proposed to make him known to the Sheareses. Henry Sheares came in first, and Byrne introduced them, but Henry was unwilling to enter into conversation and shortly made an excuse to leave. Then John Sheares arrived, his head full of plans for the Rising fixed for the 23rd of the month. One of his greatest objects was to gain over the soldiers, and when Byrne introduced Armstrong as "a true brother on whom he might depend," John looked on the meeting as the direct answer to his prayers. The captain professed to be as eager as John to secure the soldiers for the cause, and they arranged to meet at the brothers' house in Baggot Street the following Sunday.

39. Founding of The Northern Star in Belfast

    near Belfast · city · Antrim · 1792–1794

    In 1792 the Northern Star newspaper was established in Belfast to preach the doctrines of the United Irishmen, with Neilson appointed editor and eventually sole proprietor, a role that ruined him financially through repeated prosecutions.

    Read the passage

    In 1792 there was established in Belfast to preach the doctrines of the new society a memorable paper, _The Northern Star_. Of this paper, to the finances of which he had liberally contributed, Neilson was appointed the editor. Eventually he became the sole proprietor—with disastrous results to his financial position. The paper was repeatedly the object of legal proceedings, and apparently to escape the consequences of these, the other shareholders got rid of their interest in it. Madden tells us that “the various prosecutions carried on against it had obliged Neilson to dispose of all his property, and to relinquish his business in order to meet the enormous expenses attendant on these proceedings, and the unexpected demands arising from them. The other proprietors, shortly after the prosecutions, disposed of their shares to Neilson, and thus encompassed with peril he became the sole proprietor of the paper. In 1792 the printer and proprietors had been prosecuted and acquitted. In January, 1793, six informations were filed in King’s Bench against them for seditious libels, and in November, 1794, they were prosecuted for publishing the address of the United Irishmen to the Volunteers.”

    It was not alone through the medium of the _Northern Star_ that Neilson served the cause of the Catholics. He was active in his efforts to compose the differences between the Catholics and the Presbyterians, and to lay the feuds of the Peep o’ Day Boys and the Defenders. We learn from Tone’s diary that both Neilson and his wife were of the party which accompanied John Keogh and the other Catholic delegates, on their return from Belfast in July, 1732, to Rathfriland in order to meet some gentlemen of the neighbourhood with a view to restoring peace between the rival religious parties. He took part, with Tone and Keogh, in a similar expedition a month later. He was intensely interested in the work of the Catholic Committee and the plans for the Catholic Convention.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

40. Massacre of Carnew

    Carnew · town · Wicklow · 1798

    Miles Byrne learned upon his return of the barbarous massacre committed at Carnew during his absence, along with the murder of Garrett Fennell, Darcy, and others.

    Read the passage

    “It was only now I heard for the first time of all the barbarous murders that had been committed whilst I was away; the massacre of Carnew, the murder of poor Garrett Fennell, Darcy, and a list of others who had shared the same fate. My dear sister thought she could never tell me enough about all that had happened during my absence; how our horses were taken, and that three men mounted my mare and sprained her back, etc. But if I had not remarked a long scar on her neck she would not have mentioned anything about herself. A yeoman of the name of Wheatley, on the day that poor Hugh was arrested, threatened to cut her throat with his sabre if she did not instantly tell the place where I was hiding; the cowardly villain no doubt would have put his threat into execution had not some of his comrades interfered to prevent him.

    “Being joined by a few of our former workmen and tenants’ sons, who heard I had returned, I prepared again to take leave of my sister, knowing that my dear mother would soon be home to keep her company. This time she saw me depart with joy and delight, for she had set her heart and soul on the success of our undertaking; her courage and spirit was surprising under such circumstances for a girl of her age, and she never despaired. I bid her farewell, and marched off with my faithful friends on the road to Camolin.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 11

41. Massacre on the Road Between Vinegar Hill and Gorey

    near Vinegar Hill · hill or hills · Wexford · 1798

    Nine women and six children were slain by the yeomanry on the high road between Vinegar Hill and Gorey during the suppression of the 1798 rising.

    Read the passage

    And not with their tears alone did our sisters of ’Ninety-Eight sprinkle the red furrows of that tragic seed-time. In many a forgotten grave, from Antrim to Wexford, lies the dust of the women who died victims of the brutality of the yeomanry and military, let loose on the country to goad its manhood into a rising. Beneath the unmarked site of many a vanished cabin lie the charred bones of countless women who were burnt to death when the drunken soldiery fired their homes. Among the outrages tabulated by Cloney as having been perpetrated by the military in the county of Wexford alone, we find record of seven young women violated and murdered near Ballaghkeene by the Homperg Dragoons, after the retreat from Vinegar Hill; of four women shot after the flight from Wexford; and of three women bayonetted in Enniscorthy; of nine women and six children slain by the yeomanry between Vinegar Hill and Gorey, on the high road; of three women shot by the yeomanry in the village of Aughrim; of four women murdered by “the supplementary yeomen” between Gorey and Arklow.

    Anne Devlin was not the only woman of those times who bore to the day of her death on her tender skin the cicatrized marks of the wounds inflicted by the bayonets of the soldiers in the design of extorting from her information. Some of the atrocities suffered by women had not even the excuse of any purpose—save that of satisfying a monstrous lust of cruelty. A dreadful case is that of Mrs. O’Neill, whose son, a clerical student, had been taken up and confined in New Geneva barracks, preparatory to being shipped off to work in the salt-mines of the King of Prussia. The poor woman had come all the way from Antrim, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, to take a last farewell of him. When she reached her destination she was refused access to him, and only succeeded in seeing him after she had bribed his guards. Unfortunately, she yielded to the violence of her grief when the time to leave him came, and the anguished cries of the poor mother betrayed her forbidden presence in her boy’s cell. She was torn from his arms, hurried into the presence of the colonel, and by him delivered to the tender mercies of the soldiers, who dragged her into the courtyard, and proceeded to toss her in a blanket. When the savage pastime of the soldiers ceased, a few rags were thrown to the unfortunate woman; she crawled to a neighbouring cabin, and there she died.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 1

    As the companion tells it

    You are coming up on Vinegar Hill. The high road running from here toward Gorey was the scene of one of the killings recorded from 1798. After the battle of Vinegar Hill, the yeomanry and military were let loose on the country. A man named Cloney tabulated the outrages perpetrated by the military in the county of Wexford alone. Among them, he recorded that nine women and six children were slain by the yeomanry on this high road, between Vinegar Hill and Gorey. No further detail of who they were survives in that record. Cloney listed other killings alongside it. Seven young women were violated and murdered near Ballaghkeene by the Homperg Dragoons, after the retreat from Vinegar Hill. Four women were shot after the flight from Wexford. Three women were bayonetted in Enniscorthy. Three women were shot by the yeomanry in the village of Aughrim. Four women were murdered by what Cloney called the supplementary yeomen between Gorey and Arklow. The book these records come from says that beneath the unmarked sites of many vanished cabins lie the charred bones of countless women burnt to death when drunken soldiery fired their homes. The women who died in 1798 were not only victims of battle but of a brutality that the passage describes as let loose to goad the country's manhood into a rising. The nine women and six children on this road are part of that count.

42. The Sheares Brothers Imprisoned in Kilmainham

    Kilmainham · townland · Dublin · 1798

    After examination at Dublin Castle, John and Henry Sheares were committed to Kilmainham Gaol, where they remained in close confinement until their trial began on July 4th, later postponed to July 12th.

    Read the passage

    The two brothers, after examination at the Castle, were committed to Kilmainham and here they lay in close confinement until they came up for trial on July the 4th. A postponement was secured until July the 12th. Then the trial was hurried on with the most indecent haste.

    The truth was that Lord Clare was in terror of his enemies escaping from his hands—for the most powerful influences were at work for their rescue, and the evidence against Henry Sheares was not sufficient, as the common phrase goes, “to hang a dog on.” Miss Maria Steele used her influence with her devoted admirer, Captain Horatio Cornwallis, nephew of the Lord Lieutenant, to secure the brothers’ pardon; and to his nephew’s pleading, supported by that of Julia Sheares, Lord Cornwallis, “anxious that his first act in Ireland should not be a sanguinary one,” was about to yield, when Lord Clare, who was present, intervened. All day long on July 13th, while the trial dragged its weary length through the hot and crowded court, Sarah Sheares, poor Henry’s wife, sat in a sedan-chair at Lord Clare’s hall door; when at length she saw him, she fell at his feet on the steps of his door, clasping his knees and begging her husband’s life from his hands. It was all in vain.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

43. Armed robbery at Peter Tone's farm near Clane

    Clane · town · Kildare · 1786–1787

    A gang of six armed and disguised robbers broke into the home of Peter Tone near Clane, Co. Kildare, tying up the household and ransacking the house. Matilda Tone, though only seventeen, showed great courage by returning alone in the dark to free her tied-up husband.

    Read the passage

    One October night a band of six robbers burst into the home of Peter Tone, armed with pistols and having their faces blackened. “Having tied the whole family, they proceeded to plunder and demolish every article they could find, even to the unprofitable villainy of breaking the china, looking-glasses, etc. At length, after two hours, a maid-servant whom they had tied negligently, having made her escape, they took the alarm, and fled with precipitation, leaving the house such a scene of horror and confusion as can hardly be imagined. With regard to myself, it is impossible to conceive what I suffered. As it was early in the night I happened to be in the courtyard, where I was seized and tied by the gang, who then proceeded to break into the house, leaving a ruffian sentinel over me, with a case of pistols cocked in his hand. In this situation I lay for two hours, and could hear distinctly the devastation which was going on within. I expected death every instant, and I can safely and with great truth declare that my apprehension for my wife had so totally absorbed the whole of my mind that my own existence was then the least of my concerns. When the villains, including my sentry, ran off, I scrambled to my feet with some difficulty, and made my way to a window where I called, but received no answer. My heart died within me. I proceeded to another and another, but still no answer. It was horrible. I set myself to gnaw the cords with which I was tied, in a transport of agony and rage, for I verily believed that my whole family lay murdered within, when I was relieved from my unspeakable terror and anguish by my wife’s voice, which I heard calling on my name at the end of the house. It seems that, as soon as the robbers fled, those within had untied each other with some difficulty, and made their escape through a back window; they had got a considerable distance from the house, before, in their fright, they recollected me, of whose fate they were utterly ignorant as I was of theirs. Under these circumstances, my wife had the courage to return alone, and, in the dark, to find me out, not knowing but she might again fall in to the hands of the enemy, from whom she had scarcely escaped, or that I might be lying a lifeless carcase at the threshold. I can imagine no greater act of courage; but of what is not a woman capable for him she truly loves? She cut the cords which bound me, and at length we joined the rest of the family at a little hamlet within half a mile of the house, where they had fled for shelter.”[54]

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 4

44. Betsy Grey's grave in the vale of Ballycreen

    Ballycreen · townland · Down · 1798

    After the massacre, a local farmer's wife and her son secretly buried Betsy Grey, her brother, and her lover in the vale of Ballycreen, which remains a place of patriotic pilgrimage.

    Read the passage

    The bodies lay there all day, but at nightfall, the wife of the farmer on whose land the tragedy had occurred, stole out with her little son—and kind and reverent hands laid Betsy with her brother and lover in their grave “in the vale of Ballycreen,” which even to-day is a place of patriotic pilgrimage.

    * * * * *

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 15

45. Kildare cottage becomes United Irish gathering place

    Kildare · town · Kildare · 1796–1798

    In 1796 Lord Edward became a United Irishman and the little cottage in Kildare was seldom without guests, including Arthur O'Connor, Jackson, Oliver Bond, MacNevin, Father Connolly, and the government spy Hughes.

    Read the passage

    In 1796 Lord Edward became a “United Man,” and from that period the little cottage in Kildare was seldom without guests. Chief among these was Lord Edward’s parliamentary colleague, Arthur O’Connor, but Lady Lucy Fitzgerald who spent a considerable time with her brother and sister-in-law after their return from Hamburg in October, 1796, mentions many others: Jackson, Oliver Bond, MacNevin, Father Connolly—and the sinister figure of Hughes, who, unknown to them all, was a government spy.

    The visit to Hamburg to which we have alluded, took place in May, 1796, and its supposed object was to give Pamela an opportunity of visiting Madame de Genlis, who was then living in Hamburg, as a guest of M. Matthiessen, who had married her niece, and Pamela’s schoolmate, Henrietta de Sercey. Lord Edward and Arthur O’Connor went really as agents of the United Irishmen to negotiate with the French Government for a French expedition to assist the Irish in freeing themselves from the yoke of England. The Matthiessens’ house in Hamburg became a centre of Irish political activities, and we learn from Froude and Fitzpatrick that the long unsuspected spy, Samuel Turner, got much of the information, for which he was pensioned by the English Government, by his frequentation of that house.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Kildare, this is the town where a little cottage became a gathering place for the United Irishmen. In 1796 Lord Edward became a United Man, and from then on the cottage was seldom without guests. Chief among them was his parliamentary colleague Arthur O'Connor, but Lady Lucy Fitzgerald, who spent time there with her brother after their return from Hamburg in October 1796, names others too: Jackson, Oliver Bond, MacNevin, Father Connolly, and a man called Hughes, who unknown to them all was a government spy. That Hamburg trip earlier in 1796 had a hidden purpose. Lord Edward and Arthur O'Connor went as agents of the United Irishmen to negotiate with the French Government for a French expedition to help Ireland free itself from England. The Matthiessens' house in Hamburg became a centre of Irish political activities, and another long unsuspected spy, Samuel Turner, gathered much of the information he was pensioned for by frequenting that house.

46. Lord Edward Fitzgerald concealed at Aikenhead house in Cork

    Cork · city · Cork · 1798

    Mary Aikenhead's father was an ardent sympathiser with the Cause, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald was concealed on one occasion at their house in Cork.

    Read the passage

    Mary Aikenhead, herself, was, perhaps, too young—only eleven—to have any very active share in the charities the Cork ladies exercised towards the sufferers of ’98—but her father was an ardent sympathiser with “the Cause,” and Lord Edward Fitzgerald was concealed, on one occasion, at their house. Perhaps it was in memory of this—or perhaps it was because she felt what I have tried to express: that the Sisterhood Mary Aikenhead founded, proceeded so largely from ’Ninety-Eight and all it stood for—that Lady Lucy Fitzgerald (or as she then was, Lady Lucy Foley) left at her death, a generous legacy to the Sisters of Charity. One cannot help thinking that the list of the first companions of Mary Aikenhead must have sounded to Lady Lucy like a roll-call of names made immortal in the ranks of the United Irishmen. There were Teelings, Sweetmans, Clinches, O’Reillys, Bellews, and many others.

    Mrs. Coleman (Mother Mary de Chantal) was born amid the troubles that preceded ’98. “Her father, a gentleman farmer in Meath or Louth, ... was suspected of disaffection. On the very night his little daughter was to come into the world, the house was surrounded by a troop of armed men, whose heavy footsteps, presently heard on the stairs, gave the alarm to the inmates, who hurried away ‘the poor mistress’ under cover of the darkness to an uninhabited hut sometimes used by the herd. She gave up all for lost, and resigned herself to die, knowing well that no human assistance awaited her in the hour of her utmost need. Her piety was sincere, her faith was strong, and she had an ardent devotion to the Blessed Virgin. As her husband forced open the door and led her into the dark hut, she heard a voice distinctly say: ‘Do not fear, Mary, I will protect you and your child’; while at the same time a bright light filled the place. Then and there under its influence the child was born.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 12

    As the companion tells it

    As the road takes you through Cork, this city holds a story from 1798. Mary Aikenhead was only eleven then, too young to take any active share in the charities the Cork ladies exercised towards the sufferers of that year. But her father was an ardent sympathiser with the Cause, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald was concealed, on one occasion, at their house here in Cork. Perhaps it was in memory of this, or perhaps because she felt that the Sisterhood Mary Aikenhead founded proceeded so largely from Ninety-Eight and all it stood for, that Lady Lucy Fitzgerald, then Lady Lucy Foley, left at her death a generous legacy to the Sisters of Charity. The list of the first companions of Mary Aikenhead must have sounded to Lady Lucy like a roll-call of names made immortal in the ranks of the United Irishmen. There were Teelings, Sweetmans, Clinches, O'Reillys, Bellews, and many others. Another of those women, Mrs. Coleman, Mother Mary de Chantal, was born amid the troubles that preceded Ninety-Eight. Her father, a gentleman farmer in Meath or Louth, was suspected of disaffection. On the very night his little daughter was to come into the world, the house was surrounded by a troop of armed men. Their heavy footsteps on the stairs gave the alarm, and the inmates hurried the poor mistress away under cover of darkness to an uninhabited hut used by the herd. She gave up all for lost and resigned herself to die, knowing no human assistance awaited her. As her husband forced open the door and led her into the dark hut, she heard a voice say: "Do not fear, Mary, I will protect you and your child," while a bright light filled the place. Then and there the child was born.

47. Mary Anne McCracken's tomb for Russell in Downpatrick

    near Downpatrick · town · Down

    Mary Anne McCracken's unreturned love for Thomas Russell is memorialised at his tomb in Downpatrick, which she made and inscribed with the simple words 'The Grave of Russell.'

    Read the passage

    Mary Anne McCracken’s unreturned love for Thomas Russell is among the most pathetic romances of ’Ninety-Eight. He may have loved another better; but it is her name we join with his, when we stand in Downpatrick, beside the tomb she made for him; and perhaps it is because her love has written itself in them that the words she has chosen for the inscription move us so strangely, in their austere simplicity:

    “The Grave of Russell.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 15

48. McCracken held at the Ann Street artillery barracks

    Ann Street · street · Antrim · 1798

    After being paraded through Belfast, Henry Joy McCracken was taken to the artillery barracks in Ann Street, where his sisters eventually gained admission to see him through the intervention of Colonel Barber.

    Read the passage

    “We remained all night in Carrickfergus, and tried the next morning to see him again; but were not admitted. We saw him, however, through the window of his cell, when he gave me a ring, with a green shamrock engraved on the outside, and the words, ‘Remember Orr,’ on the inside, which he desired me to give to his mother. Since her death it has remained with me. On the 16th, he was brought in a prisoner to Belfast, in the evening. My sister and I immediately set out to try if we could see him. He was then standing, with a strong escort of soldiers who were drawn up on the middle of Castle place. We could not speak to him there. He was then taken to the artillery barracks in Ann Street.”

    After a brutal refusal from Colonel Durham, the sisters at length obtained, from the humanity of Colonel Barber, admission to their brother. At this interview Harry requested that his cousins, Mrs. Holmes and Miss Mary Toomb, should be called as witnesses on his behalf.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

49. Mrs Neilson's Prison Visits at Kilmainham

    Kilmainham · townland · Dublin · 1796–1798

    Despite Neilson's attempt to prohibit her from visiting due to the hardships of the journey and prison conditions, his wife obtained an order of admission and visited him at Kilmainham during his seventeen-month captivity.

    Read the passage

    After a few months Lord O’Neill obtained from Government permission for the prisoners to see their wives. Charles Teeling informs us of his surprise at finding that Neilson was not disposed to avail himself of this permission. “Neilson had a tender affection for his wife, and she merited all the respect and attachment he could feel; yet he positively prohibited her visiting his prison. ‘I cannot,’ said he, ‘suffer you to undertake a long and fatiguing journey at this season of the year to visit me in my cell. Here your nerves will be shocked by the brutality of a turnkey, and at the Castle your pride will be wounded by the insolence of a minion in office.’ His prohibition, however, did not avail. He addressed his letter through the usual channel, the office of the Secretary of State; but the faithful partner of his affections had already procured an order of admission to the prison.”[78]

    Footnote 78:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

50. Neilson and Lord Edward Stopped by Patrol near Palmerstown

    Palmerstown · street · Dublin · 1798

    While delivering messages for Lord Edward Fitzgerald and organising the Union, Neilson was stopped along with his Lordship by a patrol near Palmerstown, but was released when the officer failed to recognize them.

    Read the passage

    Neilson considered that the Government’s breach of faith towards him absolved him from his engagement to them—and from this time forth he threw himself, with a feverish energy his debilitated frame could ill support, into the service of the Union. According to his own statement, “he was very active in procuring that the vacancies caused by the arrest at Bond’s should be filled up, attended several committees belonging to the union, delivered some messages from Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and together with his Lordship, was stopped by a patrol near Palmerstown, and liberated after being a short time in custody, owing to the ignorance of the officer respecting our persons.” A Northern delegate reported at a provincial meeting in Belfast that Neilson “was riding almost night and day, organising the people; and scarcely any person knew where he slept.”

    During the time between March the 12th and Lord Edward’s arrest on May the 19th, Neilson constantly visited his Lordship at his various places of concealment. Miss Moore long afterwards told Dr. Madden that “no matter how depressed Lord Edward was, the appearance of Neilson always brightened him up.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

51. Orange Raid Destroys Teeling's Bleach-Yard in Lisburn

    near Lisburn · town · Antrim · 1797

    Some months after Charles's arrest, Orangemen entered Mr. Teeling's premises in broad daylight, wrecked his bleach-yard, looted his house, and left the entire establishment a desolate ruin, despite the proximity of garrisoned towns and armed police.

    Read the passage

    In the meantime all sorts of misfortunes had befallen the happy household on Church Hill. Some months after the arrest of Charles, the Orangemen, in broad daylight, had entered Mr. Teeling’s premises, wrecked his bleach-yard, looted his house, and in the course of a few hours’ deliberate devastation left the entire establishment “a desolate ruin.” And all this, as Charles points out in his narrative, “in the blush of open day, within the immediate vicinity of two garrisoned towns, an active magistrate, and an armed police.” It is quite clear that the Orangemen were the agents of vengeance of the Government, who thus designed to punish Mr. Teeling’s temerity in acting as Secretary of a meeting of the Freeholders of Co. Antrim, convened by public notice at Ballymena on May 8th, 1797, from which had gone forth a Petition to the King setting forth the intolerable grievances under which the Irish people were suffering, and praying his Majesty to dismiss the ministers responsible for them.

    As their lives were no longer safe in Lisburn, Mr. Teeling moved his family to Union Lodge, near Dundalk, which had been previously used by Bartle as his headquarters, But even here they were not safe. He got private notice from a well-wisher that he was about to be arrested. He, therefore, found an asylum for Mrs. Teeling and the girls with her brother, Mr. John Taaffe, at Smarmore Castle, Ardee, while he looked around him to make fresh provision for them.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

52. Searching near the White House for the fugitive

    Whitehouse · townland · Antrim · 1798

    After the battle of Antrim, Mary McCracken and a companion went in search of her brother Henry, making enquiries near the White House before continuing their search of the countryside.

    Read the passage

    “Some days after the battle of Antrim, not having received any intelligence of my brother, I set out in pursuit of him, accompanied by Mrs. M.——, sister of John Shaw, of Belfast, who wished to get some information respecting her husband and also a brother of Mrs. Shaw. We went towards the White House and made some enquiries in the neighbourhood. In the evening we joined J. McG. at the country residence of Mr. John Brown, a banker, then in England, whose gardener, Cunningham, had given shelter occasionally to the wanderers. At nightfall this man took us to a house near the Cave Hill, belonging to John Brier, whom I knew a little, where we got a bed that night. In the morning I urged Mrs. M. to return home, which she generously refused, although she had gained the information she required. She insisted on accompanying me. Her husband had got safe into Belfast, disguised as a countryman with a basket of eggs, and was then safe in Mr. Shaw’s house; he had been at the battle of Antrim also. The next day we continued our search, and at last met with Gawin Watt and another person, who promised to take us in the evening to a place where we would get intelligence. The latter took us to a smith’s house, on the lime-stone road to Antrim....

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

53. Seven Young Women Murdered near Ballaghkeene

    Ballaghkeen · village · Wexford · 1798

    Following the retreat from Vinegar Hill, the Homperg Dragoons violated and murdered seven young women near Ballaghkeene, one of the atrocities tabulated by Cloney in County Wexford.

    Read the passage

    And not with their tears alone did our sisters of ’Ninety-Eight sprinkle the red furrows of that tragic seed-time. In many a forgotten grave, from Antrim to Wexford, lies the dust of the women who died victims of the brutality of the yeomanry and military, let loose on the country to goad its manhood into a rising. Beneath the unmarked site of many a vanished cabin lie the charred bones of countless women who were burnt to death when the drunken soldiery fired their homes. Among the outrages tabulated by Cloney as having been perpetrated by the military in the county of Wexford alone, we find record of seven young women violated and murdered near Ballaghkeene by the Homperg Dragoons, after the retreat from Vinegar Hill; of four women shot after the flight from Wexford; and of three women bayonetted in Enniscorthy; of nine women and six children slain by the yeomanry between Vinegar Hill and Gorey, on the high road; of three women shot by the yeomanry in the village of Aughrim; of four women murdered by “the supplementary yeomen” between Gorey and Arklow.

    Anne Devlin was not the only woman of those times who bore to the day of her death on her tender skin the cicatrized marks of the wounds inflicted by the bayonets of the soldiers in the design of extorting from her information. Some of the atrocities suffered by women had not even the excuse of any purpose—save that of satisfying a monstrous lust of cruelty. A dreadful case is that of Mrs. O’Neill, whose son, a clerical student, had been taken up and confined in New Geneva barracks, preparatory to being shipped off to work in the salt-mines of the King of Prussia. The poor woman had come all the way from Antrim, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, to take a last farewell of him. When she reached her destination she was refused access to him, and only succeeded in seeing him after she had bribed his guards. Unfortunately, she yielded to the violence of her grief when the time to leave him came, and the anguished cries of the poor mother betrayed her forbidden presence in her boy’s cell. She was torn from his arms, hurried into the presence of the colonel, and by him delivered to the tender mercies of the soldiers, who dragged her into the courtyard, and proceeded to toss her in a blanket. When the savage pastime of the soldiers ceased, a few rags were thrown to the unfortunate woman; she crawled to a neighbouring cabin, and there she died.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 1

54. The Battle of the Diamond near Loughgall

    Loughgall · townland · Armagh · 1795

    The Battle of the Diamond was fought and won by Protestant forces against the Catholic Defenders, worsening conditions for local Catholics; on the same day the Orange Order was formed at a house in the village of Loughgall.

    Read the passage

    The first Orange lodge was formed on September 21, 1795, at the house of a man called Sloan, in the village of Loughgall, Co. Armagh.

    Footnote 50:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

55. Vicious rumours about Pamela in Dublin streets

    Dublin · city · Dublin · 1793

    Malicious rumours circulated in Dublin claiming Pamela wore a handkerchief spotted with Louis XVI's blood and red ribbons symbolizing aristocrats' blood, reflecting Ascendancy hostility to her supposed Orleans connection.

    Read the passage

    Unfortunately for Pamela’s happiness, her husband was wrong in thinking everybody seemed to like her. The ladies of the Ascendancy party hated her with all their hearts, and behaved with inconceivable rudeness to her. Her husband, ever since his return from Paris (whence the stories of his “revolutionary” doings had preceded him), had been a marked man for the “Old Gang,” and his bride’s supposed relationship to Egalité (who had recently been guilty of the infamy of voting for Louis XVI’s death) was not calculated to re-establish him with them. The vilest stories were set in circulation about poor Pamela. One lady is supposed to have seen her in the streets of Dublin “with a handkerchief on her neck spotted with Louis XVI’s blood; that some of her friends had sent from Paris.” When everybody else was in mourning for Louis, she is said to have worn red ribbons “which she said were _couleur du sang des Aristocrats_.”

    On one occasion the whim took her to go to a ball, dressed all in black with nothing to relieve the sombre effect, except the pink upon her head. The _Doblin Lidies_, according to her sister-in-law, Lady Lucy, “stared her out of countenance” and sent her home in a rage to Eddy.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Dublin, you are moving through the same streets where vicious rumours about Pamela circulated in 1793. The ladies of the Ascendancy hated her, partly because her husband had returned from Paris with a reputation for revolutionary doings, and partly because of Pamela's supposed relationship to Egalité, who had voted for the death of Louis XVI. One lady claimed to have seen Pamela in the streets of Dublin wearing "a handkerchief on her neck spotted with Louis XVI's blood" that friends had sent from Paris. When others mourned Louis, Pamela was said to wear red ribbons, which she called the colour of the blood of aristocrats. On another occasion she went to a ball dressed entirely in black with nothing to relieve it but pink upon her head, and the Dublin ladies, according to her sister-in-law Lady Lucy, stared her out of countenance and sent her home in a rage to Eddy.

56. Women Die Fighting on Vinegar Hill

    near Vinegar Hill · hill or hills · Wexford · 1798

    Many brave women died fighting alongside the insurgents at the Battle of Vinegar Hill during the 1798 rebellion.

    Read the passage

    The same motives which urged the priest to become the soldier animated many of the women. Better, it seemed to them, to die fighting side by side with their men in the field than to be violated and butchered in their houses. And so we find among the Women of ’Ninety-Eight more than one Irish Joan of Arc. There was Molly Weston who fought at Tara, Betsy Grey at Ballynahinch, Mary Doyle at New Ross and many a brave woman who died fighting on Vinegar Hill.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 1

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass Vinegar Hill, you are near the field where, in 1798, many brave women died fighting alongside the insurgents. The book says they chose to die fighting side by side with their men in the field rather than be violated and butchered in their houses. Their names are not all recorded, but they fought here, among them many whose stories were lost.

57. Arrest and Imprisonment in Dublin, 1796

    Kilmainham · townland · Dublin · 1796

    In September 1796 Neilson, Teeling, Russell and others were arrested and conveyed to Dublin, where they were lodged in Newgate and Kilmainham prisons.

    Read the passage

    In September, 1796, both Teeling and Neilson with Russell and others were arrested, conveyed to Dublin and lodged in Newgate and Kilmainham. A few weeks afterwards the two McCrackens were added to the company of Northern prisoners.

    After a few months Lord O’Neill obtained from Government permission for the prisoners to see their wives. Charles Teeling informs us of his surprise at finding that Neilson was not disposed to avail himself of this permission. “Neilson had a tender affection for his wife, and she merited all the respect and attachment he could feel; yet he positively prohibited her visiting his prison. ‘I cannot,’ said he, ‘suffer you to undertake a long and fatiguing journey at this season of the year to visit me in my cell. Here your nerves will be shocked by the brutality of a turnkey, and at the Castle your pride will be wounded by the insolence of a minion in office.’ His prohibition, however, did not avail. He addressed his letter through the usual channel, the office of the Secretary of State; but the faithful partner of his affections had already procured an order of admission to the prison.”[78]

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

58. Arrest and Imprisonment of Luke Teeling in Belfast

    near Belfast · city · Antrim · 1798–1802

    On June 16th, 1798, Luke Teeling was arrested and committed to prison in Belfast with no charge made against him. He was held there for four years, moved between the provost prison, a prison ship, and Carrickfergus Castle, before being liberated in 1802.

    Read the passage

    All this time Mary Teeling was without news of him, and to the burden which she already had to bear was added that of intolerable anxiety for her eldest son, and great uneasiness about Charles, of whose health his father brought back discouraging reports from his visits to Kilmainham. The kindness of her brother John and his wife Catherine, and the hospitality they so gladly offered her and her girls, could not make her forget the wreck of her own beautiful home, and the irreparable damage done to her husband’s fortune. Moreover, his health was much affected by the condition of his affairs, and the fatigues he had undergone to re-establish them. A trip to a Donegal Spa, followed by a horseback journey to Connacht (where he hoped to establish a new bleach-green) had exhausted him, and in the spring of ’98, he had been sent by his doctor to Cushendall for sea-bathing. His frequent changes of abode were represented to Government as connected with treasonable activities, and accordingly on June 16th, 1798, he was arrested, and committed to prison in Belfast, no charge being made against him.

    For four years Luke Teeling was kept in prison, and was only liberated in 1802. And during all that time no charge was brought against him, nor did his repeated requests to be brought to trial bring any result. From the provost prison in Belfast, he was moved to the _Postlethwaite_ tender, lying in Belfast Lough, one of the prison ships which were among the horrors of the day; from that to Carrickfergus Castle, and finally back to the prison in Belfast. It has been my privilege to read many of the letters addressed by Luke Teeling from his various prisons to members of his family, and truly it was with a great stirring of the heart that one held them in one’s hands, and read the story they tell of sufferings heroically borne; of a devotion to honour and principle which counted no cost too great; of a Faith and Hope, and love of God and God’s Church intense enough to make the writer free of the ardent and heroic company of the saints. There is one letter written from the _Postlethwaite_, where the firm hand trembles, and the strong heart shows nigh to breaking—which it is impossible to read without tears. It is the letter in which the father writes to Bartle’s old friend, Sam Wall, the news of Bartle’s execution.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

59. Arrest of John Sweetman at his Francis Street Brewery

    Francis Street · street · Dublin · 1798

    On March 12th, 1798, the Government arrested the leaders of the United Irishmen; John Sweetman was arrested at his brewery in Francis Street, Dublin.

    Read the passage

    Three weeks after his release, on March the 12th, 1798, the Government swooped down on the leaders of the United Irishmen and by midnight of that memorable day had all of them, practically, with the single exception of Lord Edward, safe under lock and key. John Sweetman was arrested at his brewery in Francis Street—and it became known to Neilson that his own re-arrest was merely a matter of time.

    Neilson considered that the Government’s breach of faith towards him absolved him from his engagement to them—and from this time forth he threw himself, with a feverish energy his debilitated frame could ill support, into the service of the Union. According to his own statement, “he was very active in procuring that the vacancies caused by the arrest at Bond’s should be filled up, attended several committees belonging to the union, delivered some messages from Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and together with his Lordship, was stopped by a patrol near Palmerstown, and liberated after being a short time in custody, owing to the ignorance of the officer respecting our persons.” A Northern delegate reported at a provincial meeting in Belfast that Neilson “was riding almost night and day, organising the people; and scarcely any person knew where he slept.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on Francis Street, on the 12th of March 1798, the Government moved against the leaders of the United Irishmen. By midnight that day they had nearly all of them in custody, with the single exception of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. John Sweetman was arrested at his brewery on this street. He had been released only three weeks earlier, and was now swept up again in the Government's crackdown. Neilson, another of the United Irishmen, learned that his own re-arrest was merely a matter of time. He considered the Government's breach of faith towards him a release from any obligation he had given them, and threw himself into the Union's service with what the account calls a feverish energy his debilitated frame could ill support. He was active in filling the vacancies caused by the arrests, attended committees, delivered messages from Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and was even stopped by a patrol near Palmerstown before being released because the officer did not recognise him. A Northern delegate reported that Neilson was riding almost night and day, organising the people, and scarcely anyone knew where he slept.

60. Baron Hamilton's Development of Balbriggan

    Balbriggan · town · Dublin · 1760–1780

    Under landlord Baron Hamilton, Balbriggan developed from a small fishing hamlet into a prosperous trading town with a new pier built in the 1760s, cotton works established in 1780, and a thriving fishing fleet of 23 boats.

    Read the passage

    It was in the days when Balbriggan, under the fostering care of its landlord, Baron Hamilton, of Hampton Hall,[44] was developing from a miserable little fishing hamlet into a prosperous trading town. With the assistance of a small grant from the Irish Parliament, the Baron built the pier, in the sixties of the eighteenth century, and thus fostered a lively carrying trade with Wales. Ships of two hundred tons could unload in the new harbour, and such craft crowded the quay, unloading cargoes of slates, coal and culm, as well as rock salt and bark, and carrying back corn and cattle. In 1780 the Baron established extensive cotton works here, for the promotion of which parliament granted the sum of £1,250, but this manufacture was subsequently almost abandoned for that of hosiery.[45] When Arthur Young visited Ireland in 1776, he spent a few days with the Baron, and we learn from him[46] much of the latter’s improvements; of the one hundred and fifty acres of mountain land he reclaimed; of the agricultural methods he adopted, and of their financial results; of the local fishing industry and how he worked it. It seems the Baron had boat-building works, and out of these came his fleet of “23 boats each carrying seven men, who were not paid wages, but divided the produce of the fishery. The vessel took one share, and the hands one each, which amounts on an average to 16s. a week. A boat costs from £130 to £200, fitted out ready for the fishery; they make their own nets.”

    Footnote 44:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3