Page images
PDF
EPUB

power, they had been induced by the manage ment of some chiefs, particularly Mr. Keugh, who awaited the arrival of the king's troops, hoping doubtless that the services rendered on this occasion might procure him impunity. Detachments of the army soon following captain Boyd, the surviving prisoners, to the number of about one hundred and forty, who had been miserably fed with cows' heads and potatoes, were, to their inexpressible joy, set at liberty. What number had been massacred during the whole time of the rebels possession, I cannot state with accuracy, but I believe it to have amounted to one hundred and one.

While the surviving loyalists in Wexford were rejoicing at their deliverance, a very tragic scene was acted in Gorey. On the departure of general Needham from the latter town to Vinegar-hill, on the 20th of June, he had sent an express to captain Holmes, of the Durham regiment, who commanded in Arklow, ordering him to dispatch immediately to Gorey that part of the Gorey cavalry who remained in Arklow, and informing him, that on their arrival at their place of destination, they should find an officer to command them, and a large force with which they were to unite. By the same express the Gorey infantry were ordered to remain in Arklow; but these, and the refugee inhabitants of Gorey, hearing of a large force to protect their town, were so impa

On

tient to revisit their homes, that they followed the cavalry contrary to orders. This body of cavalry, amounting only to seventeen in number, found on their arrival in Gorey, to their astonishment, not an officer or soldier. They, however, had the courage or temerity to scour the country in search of rebels, with the assistance of some others who had joined them, and killed about fifty men whom they found in their houses, or straggling homeward from the rebel army. the 22d, a body of about five hundred rebels, under the conduct of Perry, retreating from Wexford, and directing their march to the Wicklow mountains, received information of this slaughter, and the weakness of the party committing it. They instantly ran full speed to the town, determined on vengeance. On intelligence of their approach, lieutenant Gordon, a youth of only twenty years of age, who had the command, marched his men (consisting of fourteen infantry, beside the cavalry out of the town to meet the enemy, and took post in an advantageous position near a place called Charlottegrove, where they fired some vollies on the rebels, seven of whom they killed; but finding that they must be immediately surrounded and destroyed if they should attempt to maintain their post, they retreated, and each horseman taking a footman behind him, fled through the town toward Arklow. As As by this motion the refugees, who

had returned from Arklow, and were now attempting to escape again thither, were left exposed to the pursuit of the enraged enemy, the officer attempted to rally the yeomen on the road, to cover, if possible, the flight of these unfortunate people; but the yeomen galloped away full speed to Arklow in spite of his remonstrances, and the refugees were slaughtered along the road to the number of thirty-seven men, beside a few who were left for dead, but afterwards recovered. No women or children were injured, because the rebels, who professed to act on a plan of retaliation, found on inquiry that no women or children of their party had been hurt. This was owing to the humanity of a young gentleman of seventeen years of age in the yeoman cavalry, who had by his remonstrances restrained his associates from violence with respect to the fair sex. In the action of this day, which will be long remembered in Gorey under the title of Bloody Friday, only three of the yeoman infantry were killed, and none of the cavalry. The rebels having accomplished their purpose of revenge, their only motive for deviating from their course to visit Gorey, resumed, after a short repast, their march to the Wicklow mountains.

[ocr errors]

CHAP. IV.

Ulster-Antrim-Saintfield Ballinahinch-Ballyna_ scarty Scollogh gap-Gore's bridge-Castle comer Kilcomny-Hacketstown-Perry-Ballyellis - Ballyraheen Ballygullin -Clonard Incursion-Dispersion.

MOUNTAINS now, and other devious recesses, since their expulsion from Enniscorthy and Wexford, were the only retreats of the rebels, of whom those who remained in arms, endeavoured by rapid movements from one strong position to another to elude the king's forces, and thus to protract the war until the arrival of their foreign allies. In the time of the operations already related, by which the rebels of the county of Wexford were reduced to this situation, occurrences had elsewhere taken place, some of which are to be noticed. The province of Ulster, where insurrection had been most of all dreaded, and where from the spirit of the inhabitants it would,

[ocr errors]

Their expectation of foreign succour was expressed in the following verse of one of the songs, which they were accustomed to sing at this time.

Up the rocky mountain and down the boggy glyn,
We'll keep them in agitation until the French come in,

if extensive, have been most of all formidableremained undisturbed, excepting two districts, where, as the insurgents were unsupported, they were soon suppressed. Neither, from the prin ciples of the northern people, better educated, and possessing more of the purity of true religion, were the insurgents of this quarter deliberately guilty, except in one instance, of the plunder, devastation, and murder of the southern.

One of these insurrections was in the county of Antrim, in the neighbourhood of the town of that name, on the 7th of June. A meeting of magistrates being appointed to be held on that day in Antrim, for the prevention of rebellion, the insurgents, with design of seizing the persons of these, attacked the town at two o'clock in the afternoon, and soon overpowering the troops within it, very nearly gained possession. Majorgeneral Nugent, who commanded in that district, having received intelligence of the intended rising, and the immediate object of it, had ordered a body of troops to march to Antrim, who arrived too late to prevent the rebels from the execution of their design in the attack of the town. They then attacked the insurgents in the town, but their van-guard, consisting of cavalry, being repulsed with the loss of twentythree men killed and wounded, of whom three were officers, colonel Durham, who commanded the troops, brought the artillery to batter the

« PreviousContinue »