Devin Reilly, and
other prominent members of the Confederation. They took a survey of the
village and its neighbourhood; addressed the crowd from the piers of the
chapel gate, and slept in the house of one of the village shopkeepers.
Next day they returned to Mullinahone and thence to Killenaule, where
they were received with every demonstration of welcome and rejoicing.
Bouquets fell in showers upon O'Brien; addresses were read, and the
fullest and warmest co-operation was freely promised by the excited
crowds that congregated in the streets.

The exact position which the Confederates had now assumed towards the
Crown and government, is deserving of a moment's attention. Up to the
last they carefully distinguished between resisting the acts of the
government and disputing the sovereignty of the queen. They regarded the
suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ Act as unconstitutional in itself; and
when O'Brien told her Majesty's Ministers in the House of Commons, that
it was they who were the traitors to the country, the Queen, and the
Constitution, he did but express the opinions that underlay the whole
policy of the Confederation. Even the passing of the _Habeas Corpus_
Suspension Act was not quite sufficient to exhaust their patience; in
order to fill the measure of the government's transgressions and justify
a resort to arms against them, it was necessary in the opinion of
O'Brien and his associates, that the authorities should attempt to carry
into operation the iniquitious law they had passed; the arrest of
O'Brien was to be the signal for insurrection; meanwhile, they were
satisfied with organizing their forces for the fray, and preparing for
offering an effective resistance to the execution of the warrant,
whenever it should make its appearance. It was therefore that when at
Killenaule, a small party of dragoons rode up to the town they were
suffered to proceed unmolested; at the first notice of their coming, the
people rushed to the streets and hastily threw up a barricade to
intercept them. Dillon commanded at the barricade; beside him stood
Patrick O'Donoghue, and a young man whose career as a revolutionist, was
destined to extend far beyond the scenes in which he was then sharing;
and whose name was one day to become first a terror to the government of
England, and afterwards a by-word and a reproach amongst his countrymen.
O'Donoghue and Stephens were both armed, and when the officer commanding
the dragoons rode