Page 292 - Demo

292 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
The brothers, John and Henry Sheares then took command, and despite the movement being severely crippled by the arrests, the death of Fitzgerald, and the resulting confusion, nevertheless, the 23 May was settled on as the date for the rising. The general signal of revolt for the more remote parts of the country was to be the non-arrival of the mail-coaches that were due to leave Dublin on the night of 23 May. In the meantime, just as in 1641, Dublin Castle was to be seized, along with the Pigeon-House Fort, military barracks, and a military camp on the Dublin outskirts. But the authorities, being as we know aware of the plans, seized the Sheares brothers, who were later hanged, positioned a formidable guard on the Castle, armed the loyalist citizens of the city, and placed Dublin City under martial law.
In consequence, then, of the arrest of the leaders and the disarrangement, confusion and rumbling of the plans of the United Irishmen, the rising of ’98 was feeble, ill-arranged, and nipped in the bud. Some bodies of ill-prepared and badly armed United men respond- ed to the signal and rose in county Dublin and the neighbouring counties of Wicklow, Car- low, Kildare and Meath. The county Dublin men marched on the city but were disposed of and routed by the British at Rathfarnham, Tallaght, and Santry, while the Wicklow men were defeated at Baltinglass. On Tara Hill, four thousand Meath men fought a gallant fight against overwhelming odds, but were overcome with the loss of upwards of 400 men. The Carlow men lost 600 killed in their short campaign. The men of Kildare, although they initially defeated a large force of dragoons at Kilcullen and other British troops at Prosper- ous, were themselves heavily defeated at Naas, and a body of them who had surrendered and laid down their arms at a place called Gibbet Rath, were, when disarmed, fallen upon
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