rk Militia,
commanded by Lord Kingsborough. The men paraded in orange ribbons, fired
at the peaceful country people, and employed pitchcaps and torture,
until their victims were driven to desperation. The county was
proclaimed on the 27th of April, by the magistrates; and before any riot
had taken place, Mr. Hunter Gowan paraded through Gorey at the head of
his yeomanry, with a human finger on the point of his sword, which was
subsequently used to stir their punch in the evening.

On Whit-Sunday, the 27th of May, the yeomen burned the Catholic Chapel
of Boulavogue. Father John Murphy, the parish priest, who had hitherto
tried to suppress the insurrection, placed himself at the head of the
insurgents. The men now rose in numbers, and marched to Enniscorthy,
which they took after some fighting. Vinegar Hill, a lofty eminence
overlooking the town, was chosen for their camp. Some of the leading
Protestant gentlemen of the county had either favoured or joined the
movement; and several of them had been arrested on suspicion, and were
imprisoned at Wexford. The garrison of this place, however, fled in a
panic, caused by some successes of the Irish troops, and probably from a
very clear idea of the kind of retaliation they might expect for their
cruelties. Mr. Harvey, one of the prisoners mentioned above, was now
released, and headed the insurgents; but a powerful body of troops,
under General Loftus, was sent into the district, and eventually
obtained possession of New Ross, which the Irish had taken with great
bravery, but which they had not been able to hold for want of proper
military discipline and command. They owed their defeat to
insubordination and drunkenness. A number of prisoners had been left at
Scullabogue House, near Carrickburne Hill. Some fugitives from the Irish
camp came up in the afternoon, and pretended that Mr. Harvey had given
orders for their execution, alleging, as a reason, what, indeed, was
true, that the royalists massacred indiscriminately. The guard resisted,
but were overpowered by the mob, who were impatient to revenge without
justice the cruelties which had been inflicted on them without justice.
A hundred were burned in a barn, and thirty-seven were shot or piked.
This massacre has been held up as a horrible example of Irish treachery
and cruelty. It was horrible, no doubt, and cannot be defended or
palliated; but, amid these contending horrors of cruel war, the question
still recurs: Upon whom