e mansion house of
the Tyrrell family, and at present belongs to _John Tyrrell_ Esq.
It is an old fashioned house, fronting the road from which it is
separated by a high wall and a court yard; having an extensive
garden upon its right, and a sheet of water upon the left.--Mr. John
Tyrrell, being a Magistrate of both Counties, Kildare and Meath, and
having exerted himself early to suppress the disturbances which were
occasioned by the Defenders, naturally became an object of their
resentment, and having been repeatedly menaced with an attack, he
fortified his house by building up the original hall door, opening
another, which might flank the approach to the house, and barricading
all the lower windows, so as to render them musquet proof.

Upon the institution of the Yeomenry, Mr. John Tyrrell was honoured
with a Commission to raise a Corps of Cavalry, which was immediately
embodied, under the Title of the _Clonard Cavalry_, and Thomas Tyrrell,
and Thomas Barlow, Esqs. were appointed Lieutenants. This Corps soon
distinguished itself by its unwearied exertions to preserve the
peace of the neighbourhood; but in the course of the Spring of 1798,
Mr. John Tyrrell the Captain, receiving positive information of a
conspiracy to take away his life, thought it prudent to retire with
his family into England.

The command of the Corps consequently devolved upon Mr. Thomas
Tyrrell, the first Lieutenant, who had also at this critical period
been appointed High Sheriff of the County of Kildare.--Upon the
tenth of May 1798, he received an official letter, ordering the
Clonard Cavalry upon permanent duty; in this emergency Mr. Thomas
Tyrrell, finding his own house at Kilreiny about one mile and a
half from Clonard inconvenient, and in truth indefensible from
its situation, removed with his family to his Kinsman's house at
Clonard, before described, where he mounted a guard of one Serjeant
and 18 men who were to be relieved every week.

Orders were about the same time issued to Captain O Ferrall of the
Ballina Cavalry, to mount a permanent guard at Johnstown, near the
Nineteen Mile house, which were accordingly complied with: but upon
the 16th of May, reports of a general rising having been circulated,
and being corroborated by encreasing outrages in the neighbourhood,
Captain O Ferrall was permitted to fall back from Johnstown to
Clonard in the night time for protection; repairing to Johnstown at
four o'Clock in the morning, and reti