1798

by Joe Murphy

  He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the mocking roars and goading shouts drifting to them from Cleaver’s palace, ‘Unfortunately, Dan, there are persons amongst these peasants who would gladly sacrifice your noble enterprise for a chance to punish those who have caused them even imagined offence. Not everyone here is a United Irishman, brother, and not everyone is possessed of your fine sensibilities and lofty ideals.’

  Dan stared at the hard ground at his feet before finally admitting, ‘I am afraid for Elizabeth, Tom. What if such people decide to punish her family for some fantasy of their own making? What if a bloody mob is all that we can expect?’

  Tom smiled reassuringly at his stricken brother, ‘Have no fear, Dan. Elizabeth is far from here and Carnew, and a den of Orange malfeasance is probably the safest place she could find herself.’

  Dan was about to reply when an explosive cough, deep and vibrating, echoed down the packed street. The two brother’s leaped to their feet in time to witness the thatch of a cottage some hundred yards away burst into flames in the morning light. Smoke billowed skyward as another flaming lantern was flung onto the pyre, splashing hot tongues of lamp oil as it smashed.

  ‘What in God’s name are they at?’ cried Dan.

  ‘Revenge,’ stated Tom simply.

  From Haughton’s house the leaders spilled into the street, weapons drawn and faces demonic with anger. The Quaker’s door rattled on its hinges as first one and then another barrelled forth into the suddenly smoke-filled street.

  ‘What is going on?’ yelled Roche, spying Dan and Tom standing rapt in the roadway.

  Tom merely pointed wordlessly down the street to where rebel hands were wrenching open the locked doors and windows of known loyalists and yeomen. Drunk with a feeling of impunity, rebels were busy strewing belongings and crockery out across the street. As delft smashed like eggshells a joyous shout went up from those gathered outside. Yet the exhortations to violence were not universal. Vast tracts of the horde remained silent and merely regarded the rioters with a wary disdain. Nobody interfered, though, nobody called a halt to the vandalism.

  Then Fr Murphy was amongst them, opprobrium lashing from his tongue just as violence lashed from his fists. He shoved and pushed and kicked the individuals in each of the destructive little mobs until he had herded them into the middle of the street. Then in his great voice he excoriated them as they stood amidst the jetsam of the homes they had destroyed.

  ‘How dare you?’ he railed. ‘How dare you take it upon yourselves to commit so gross and cowardly an act in the face of the hospitality we have been shown thus far?

  ‘How many,’ he continued, ‘how many of you who have made such disgraces of yourselves this morning were at Oulart Hill? How many of you fought and bled when the soldiers came?’

  Neither voice nor hand was raised in answer to him.

  ‘Not one of ye!’ bellowed the priest. ‘And yet you think it fit to loot and despoil, to break and burn? I see some of you now looking down at your shoe buckles with shame, and well you might. By God Himself, if you think that all that lies in front of you between here and Ireland’s liberty is robbery and pillage, then you are mistaken. Let any man who puts plunder and greed, who puts the grossest sins above our cause, quit the ranks now, for such a man is not wanted.’

  The gathered crowd watched him with bovine stupidity. One of them, anonymous behind a wall of his fellows, began saying, ‘But Father, they’re all Orangemen around here …’

  Fr Murphy cut him short with words as sharp as cavalry sabres, ‘If they were demons from the very pit of hell, I would not care tuppence. No good Wexfordman shall stoop to such petty acts as destroying a man’s property without trial or recourse to law.’

  He flung his gaze about then, taking in as many of the assembled throng as he could, ‘Get every man back to his company. We march on Enniscorthy this very instant. We will see how brave you are then, me buckos, when there’s real fighting to be done.’

  Tom was shaking his head. ‘This is insanity of the most dangerous kind,’ he whispered for the umpteenth time.

  The long column of insurgents had marched all morning and had reached Scarawalsh Bridge just before one o’clock in the afternoon. The bridge lay three or four miles outside of Enniscorthy and it flung its dove-grey stone across the rushing Slaney in a tight series of narrow arches, so that the span itself was slightly humpbacked, unlike the flat length of the bridge at Wexford Town. From atop its stone parapet a person might lean over and view the churning water as it swept past the great wet feet of the arches. River weed flexed and tossed in the boiling water of the Slaney like emerald banners in a gale.

  Just after Scarawalsh Bridge, instead of making directly for the garrison town itself, the rebel army had swung right and followed its two contrasting banners into the maze of narrow roads and thick ditches lying to the northwest of Enniscorthy. Very soon Dan and Tom, unfamiliar with this part of the county, found themselves befuddled by the warren of laneways around Monart and Marshalstown.

  The afternoon was blazing and Dan’s shirt clung to him with a wet, tenacious grasp. Many of the men around him had plucked leaves from the hedgerows and were holding them in their mouths to protect their lower lips from sunburn. In the sweltering heat, the column had become drawn out and straggling, men stopping to take a drink from whatever bottles and containers they carried. Women hurried to mop their husbands’ brows and children dragged the heavy pikes of men who were on the verge of exhaustion.

  Dan knew that this detour into the wild country west of Enniscorthy was Edward Roche’s idea. He had observed ‘the general’ and the leaders in a huddled group just as they crossed at Scarawalsh and he had seen Roche point, insistently, to the west rather than the south.

  The reason for his obstinacy was a mystery to Dan but, after the visceral and harrowing scenes on Oulart Hill, he trusted the heavy-set United Irishman implicitly.

  ‘Insanity,’ grumbled Tom once more.

  ‘You have made your feelings clear on more than one occasion, Tom,’ panted Dan as they walked.

  ‘I cannot express them long or loudly enough,’ retorted Tom. ‘How in blazes do Roche and the good padre expect us to advance on a well-defended town? There’ll be a few more North Corks there along with Cornock’s infantry from Ferns, the Enniscorthy Yeoman Cavalry under that preening jay Solomon Richards and the Enniscorthy Infantry under Pounden. Able officers, brother, able officers who have surely gotten wind by now of our approach. Every redcoat will have a musket, Dan, and all will know how to use them.’

  Dan puffed out his cheeks and expelled a long sigh into the air, ‘We have the advantage in numbers and in spirit, Tom. Our cause will carry the day.’

  Tom threw his arms skyward in a final expression of exasperation, ‘The world’s gone mad and you along with it.’

  At length the rebel column struggled to the top of Ballyorril Hill, only four miles northwest of Enniscorthy. There they halted and the commanders gathered in conclave. There were no half-measures taken here as there had been at Ferns. Roche and Murphy immediately set up a series of pickets in the surrounding fields and roadways and a young lad, no more than ten, was sent scooting up a tall beech tree where he perched, keeping watch like a sailor in a crow’s nest.

  The fighting men and their families spread out in the fields that lay all about, verdant and glowing, sheeting the hill’s blunt crown in deepest green. Sounds of conversation and laughter began to chatter forth from the sprawling camp but there was a fissured quality to the mirth-making. Strain and worry strangled all talk within minutes of its birth and laughter was made cracked and incongruous by the permeating tension. Everywhere that men and women tried to force themselves into merriment, their efforts collapsed under the weight of foreboding.

  Enniscorthy sat in the distance like a weight on the landscape, Vinegar Hill louring over all.

  The leadership circle had sat themselves down in a paddock just beside the road and Roche was using stones plucked fr
om the ground as a person might use chess pieces. Each stone still maintained a scabrous crust of earth and he carefully cleaned each one before placing it on the grey woollen blanket he had laid out before him. Sparks, Fr Murphy and the others were listening to him in rapt attention as he moved the stones in quick straight lines and whispered urgently, jabbing his index finger first here and then there.

  Dan and Tom leaned on the gate leading into this field and watched the leaders converse.

  ‘Playing at soldiers,’ muttered Tom derisively.

  Dan flung his brother a withering look but any words that he might have thought to say were robbed from him by the animated rustling of the beech tree’s upper branches. The feathered leaves and hoary twigs parted as the young look-out’s hands pushed them urgently aside. The boy’s round face was framed in glossy bottle-green as his mouth opened wide and he called out, ‘Good sirs, there’s people coming! Not soldiers either but people like us. They’re coming up from the bridge.’

  Immediately the camp became a maelstrom of activity, shouts rang out of ‘Blackwater men, to me!’ and ‘Shelmaliers to your colours!’, and everything was a whirlwind of action and reaction.

  Within a few minutes the rebel army was drawn up along the roads and in the fields. Roche, Fr Murphy and the other commanders were sitting their horses and gazing northward, down the hill. Up the slope a sentry came jogging, his entire face a sun-bright grin.

  Gasping, he halted before Fr Murphy and gave an awkward salute. Fr Murphy smiled at the man as a ripple of embarrassed laughter crept out of the ranks. Undaunted, the man faced his superiors and reported, ‘There’s another column of United men on the way here, your honours. They are much fewer in number than what we are. Not all of them look fighting fit either, it’s likely they’ve had an oul’ set-to with the redcoats. There’s a good few women and children with them as well.’

  Fr Murphy turned to Roche and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Roche merely nodded in satisfaction.

  ‘This was arranged,’ muttered Dan to Tom. ‘Roche and the other United leaders had this hill marked as a rallying point.’

  ‘So it seems,’ agreed Tom. ‘Although I’d like to know where they come from, surely there can’t be so many eager to rally to the United banner?’

  Both brothers watched the road as, in the distance but growing gradually louder, an undercurrent of noise began to make itself heard, the drone of voices in conversation and the sudden, spiking explosion of shouts, came flowing between the ditches. Concurrently with this growing tumult a plume of dust rose above the hedgerows and crawled slowly closer across the sky.

  The first of the newcomers then appeared in the roadway. He was a large man, sitting with an air of supreme confidence astride a light grey mare. He wore the dark blues and browns of a merchant but his face bulged with all the ruddy good-health of a lord. Beneath the folds of his chin his broad chest was thrown forward and his eyes, set deep into damp hollows, twinkled with abrasive good spirits.

  The same could not be said of the tattered group this fine figure led. The ragged column huddled behind their mounted leader like a pack of starving curs. They were all badly armed, with scythes and pitchforks instead of pikes and muskets and a good many of them had red-splashed bandages binding their skulls or shoulders. Men, women and children shambled forward together, supporting each other as the sun spilled down upon them.

  Tom pointed to the bloodied bandages wrapped about the heads of the foremost of the new arrivals. ‘Those appear most likely to be wounds made by cavalry,’ he stated. ‘Sabre strokes down onto head and shoulders make marks like that. I would be of the dismal opinion that these people have been through a vision of hell.’

  Only half-listening to him, Dan was regarding the proud mounted figure with intense curiosity. ‘I know that man,’ he was murmuring, as if to himself.

  Then, suddenly, he clicked his fingers, ‘That man on horseback is Fr Michael Murphy of Ballycanew. He was pilloried and suspended by Bishop Caulfield for his association with the United Irishmen.’

  ‘Another priest?’ asked Tom good-humouredly. ‘I am starting to think that your United Irishmen is a Popish plot after all.’

  ‘I am glad to see such a committed United Irishman here, with us,’ said Dan.

  ‘I am glad of a thousand more men,’ replied Tom. ‘If we had some cannon or trained horse, I should be even more glad.’

  The two rebel bands were mingling, now. Men and women were helping to tend the wounded whilst some of Fr Michael’s flock had collapsed onto the ground, limp with relief and exhaustion.

  Dan and Tom were casting around for some way to lend a hand when a voice, shrill and on the verge of hysteria, called out, ‘Daniel? Daniel Banville?’

  Dan swivelled towards the voice and it was as though all the angles of his face, all the muscles that gave him form and poise were turned to butter. Tom watched as his brother crumbled into himself, turning on his heel and almost dissolving at the same time.

  From out of the filthy horde of women and children, a slight, young lady in soiled white linen was coming towards them. A battered straw sun-bonnet sat awry on her mahogany curls, its brim tattered and its dried flowers reduced to shreds.

  Tom jolted as Dan breathed one word with the reverence of a prayer, ‘Elizabeth.’

  Tom pinched the bridge of his nose between the grubby pads of his thumb and index fingers and watched as Dan and Elizabeth flung frantic arms about each other, holding tight, bunching fingers ploughing into fabric of shirt and dress. He watched as their heads lifted and then met, mouths questing, lips yearning for the other’s touch.

  Tom shook his head despairingly as Dan and Elizabeth kissed long and lingering as, all about them, the flotsam of war huddled in bloodied clumps of humanity.

  In the midst of chaos, Dan whispered, ‘I love you, Elizabeth.’

  The couple were pulling apart now and Dan was appraising Elizabeth with eyes verging on tears. His gaze took in her filthy dress and ruined hat, her disordered curls and her face, pale and worn with fear, her eyes banded by swollen rings of red flesh. She had been weeping. To Dan’s mind, she had been weeping a lot.

  Dan lightly gripped her shoulders and asked her softly, ‘What brought you here, Elizabeth? Why aren’t you in Carnew?’

  Elizabeth lifted one elegant hand and wiped away fresh tears as they leaked from between her lashes. With the other she punched Dan in the chest with all the force she could muster.

  He looked at her, shocked, as she addressed him angrily, ‘You have brought me here, you big oaf. You and your half-truths and recalcitrance.’

  She was openly crying now, her tears slicing channels in the grime and dust that powdered her cheeks, ‘When the Rising broke out I knew you would be involved. I knew that was why you were being so cruel with me. I went to Kilthomas Hill where a great many peasants and that priest who leads them were encamped. I have never seen so motley a crew, Daniel, and I was so frightened but I thought you would be there. I thought you would try and come to me.’

  She wiped the back of her hand across her nose and batted away Dan’s offered handkerchief before continuing, ‘As I looked for you among the fires and cooking pots a great cry went up that the yeomen were coming. And they did come, Daniel, the Carnew Yeomanry under Captain Wainwright. They put the rebels to flight with musketry and then ran them down with their horses. I was caught up with them and was forced to flee with the rest of the camp followers.

  ‘I have never seen such butchery, Daniel. Scores of people were hacked down. Women and children were trampled under horses’ hooves.’

  She pressed her face against his chest and her muffled voice came again, ‘I was terrified, Daniel. The poor people. The poor people.’

  Tom coughed politely and as she looked up at him asked, ‘Why didn’t you make your way back to Carnew?’

  Dan frowned at his brother before saying, ‘This rude fellow, Elizabeth, is my little brother Tom. I am sure he is pleased to make your acquaintance.’r />
  Elizabeth stepped away from Dan and, sniffing back the last of her tears, she smoothed the bodice of her dress before offering Tom her hand. ‘How do you do?’ she said, ‘I am Elizabeth Blakely.’

  Tom, vaguely embarrassed by his lack of manners, took her hand and shook it once, mumbling, ‘Tom Banville, pleased to make your acquaintance.’

  Dan, his eyes still flicking reproachful looks toward Tom, then said, ‘Tom is right though, Elizabeth. Why didn’t you get away back to you father’s?’

  Elizabeth looked genuinely stricken at this. Her hands splayed wide and her eyes flung to the heavens, she fumed, ‘I could not! How could I slink off home when I knew you would be out there somewhere, maybe lying in a ditch with no one to aid you? The yeomanry had the countryside all ablaze and were shooting anyone they found in the fields.’ She paused then, her eyes dropping to the ground, ‘For the women they found, shooting would have been a better fate. So I came south hoping that I might find you or at least somebody sympathetic to me or who was acquainted with my father, but the country is emptied. Houses and cabins are all in flames and loyal Protestants have seemingly vanished from the face of the earth.

  ‘Oh Daniel,’ she concluded, ‘I thought you had been killed.’

  The lovers stared into each other’s eyes for a moment before Tom’s voice intruded upon them. ‘He might very well have been killed had we ended up on Kilthomas and not Oulart Hill,’ he snapped.

  ‘The United Irishmen have been lucky in the field once so far,’ Tom continued. ‘The other engagement was obviously a disaster. I feel we should reconsider our whole involvement in this, Dan. We should take Elizabeth and make for Waterford port and thence to France or even England where we are not known and where we might forge a life for ourselves.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Dan, incredulous. ‘You heard Elizabeth. The country is open before us. We have seen no soldiers or yeos all day. A single defeat is nothing to warrant us abandoning the cause.’