Rebellion
The initial outbreak of the rebellion was confined to a ring of counties surrounding Dublin. The fighting in Kildare, Carlow, Wicklow and Meath had been largely suppressed by government forces, and the capital secured, when news arrived of a major rebel success in County Wexford. On 29 May 1798 a terse communiqué was issued from Dublin Castle confirming the rumours that had swept the city a day earlier. For the first time in the rebellion, a detachment of soldiers - in this case over 100 men of the North Cork Militia - had been cut to pieces in an open engagement at Oulart, County Wexford. Wexford was ablaze.
The eruption of Wexford was a most unexpected (as well as most unwelcome) development for Dublin Castle for the county had, by and large, escaped official scrutiny in the months and years before the rebellion. The Castle had had very few informants (or informers) in Wexford and, most unwisely, it had clearly considered this lack of information as pointing towards a general quiescence among the people there. Accordingly, the garrison in that county numbered only a few hundred men.
'On 26 May came stunning news of the summary execution of some 34 suspected United Irishmen at Dunlavin...'
Two developments had pitched Wexford over the edge and into full-scale rebellion. The first of these was the campaign of terror unleashed - particularly to the north of the county from mid-May 1798 onwards. Reports of half-hangings, floggings, pitch-cappings and house-burnings conducted principally by the North Cork Militia, under the direction of loyalist magistrates, inflamed that part of County Wexford that bordered on Wicklow, and induced panic everywhere. On 26th May came stunning news of the summary execution of some 34 suspected United Irishmen at Dunlavin, in south Wicklow; and there was a further report that at Carnew, across the border in Wexford, 35 prisoners had been summarily executed. Fevered rumours of extirpation now appeared to have substance. In terror, the peasantry - United Irishmen or not - prepared to resist.
Published: 2001-05-01
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