Page 295 - Demo

Chapter eight 295
Out from many a mud-wall cabin Eyes were watching through the night, Many a manly breast was throbbing For the blessed warning light. Murmurs passed along the valleys Like the Banshees lonely croon,
And a thousand blades were lashing At the rising of the moon.
Well they fought for poor old Ireland, And full bitter was their fate
Oh! what glorious pride and sorrow Fill the name of Ninety-eight!
Yet, thank God, e’en still are beating Hearts in manhood’s burning noon, Who would follow in their footsteps At the rising of the moon!
(The Rising of the Moon, John Keegan Casey)
In the north, the part of the country which had been the great stronghold, the very cra- dle as it were, of the United Irish Movement, there was no mass uprising, thanks mainly to the repressive and brutal ‘dragooning’ campaign of the aforementioned General Lake and also the fact that no French help was forthcoming.
However, earlier that month substantial armies were raised, and on 7 June , Henry Joy McCracken of Belfast, one of the founding members of the United Irishmen, led out a body of Antrim men who irst captured and afterwards lost Antrim town-McCracken was later taken prisoner and hanged. In Down, another senior United Irishman, Henry Munroe, at the head of the men of that county, took the town of Saintield, but was later soundly defeated and his army routed at the Battle of Ballynahinch and he himself taken and hanged at his own front door.
A few days before the rebellion broke out, Napoleon Bonaparte, commanding a massive army sailed for Egypt, a country which he had decided should be the main French overseas objective.