June 27th 1798: The apparent collapse of the United Irish effort in Ulster and manageable scale of disturbances elsewhere enable the Castle to concentrate on pacifying south Leinster. Kildare's volatility is underlined on the 18th when William Aylmer's men sally out from Timahoe and defend Ovidstown Hill from government troops from the garrisons of Navan and Trim (Meath).
The piking of over 90 prisoners on Wexford Bridge on the 20th by a dissident rebel faction lends urgency to Gen Moore's drive on the county town. Reinforced by the 2nd and 9th regiments landed with Lord Dalhousie in Waterford, Moore ignores the surrender overtures from Wexford's republican governors and sweeps into the town on the 21st. An insurgent force at Three Rocks resists weakly, sapped by the march of the `Ross army' to Vinegar Hill.
Around 10,000 soldiers surround the camp and Ennis corthy that day under generals Lake, Duff, Johnson, Loftus and Dundas. Their artillery blasts the exposed rebel positions ahead of the infantry assault. But the mis-timed march of Needham's forces from Gorey compromises the military cordon, permitting the bulk of the beleaguered rebel army escape via Darby's Gap. This denies the Castle the decisive victory it sought but vengeance falls on 57 wounded insurgents immolated in their beds in Enniscorthy. Many more are killed by the dragoons and yeomen in the ensuing mopping up operations.
In Hillsborough (Down) George Stephenson is concerned by the mounting expense of holding 39 prisoners of whom three are in a pitiable condition: "The first so wounded in the head that his brains are coming out - he is totally blind and delirious; the second is shot through the body and arm, and the third shot through the body." The exigencies of Rebellion harden attitudes towards such men and Gen Knox receives carte blanche from Nugent to act as he sees fit "for the good of the public".
Edward Fitzgerald of New park and his cousin Garret Byrne of Ballymanus command many of the insurgents who evade Lake's forces at Vinegar Hill. They press northwards to continue the struggle from the Wicklow mountains, shocked by the sight of massacred villagers around Gorey and Aughrim. A smaller column of 2,000 men is led into Kilkenny and Laois by Father John Murphy who attempts to draw unmobilised and retired United Irishmen into the campaign. They overcome the small units of crown forces encountered at Goresbridge on the 23rd and at Castlecomer on the 24th but fortune deserts them at Scullogue Gap on the Carlow side of the Kilkenny border on 26th. Hundreds are killed by the troops under Maj-Gen Asgill who reports "everything they possessed has fallen into our hands. . . this victory will restore the counties of Kilkenny and Carlow to peace'.
Byrne and Fitzgerald initially enjoy better success at Hacketstown which they overrun on the 25th with the help of Joseph Holt's north Wicklow men. The yeoman and Antrim militia defenders retreat with loss into the town's stone redoubts.
Scores of insurgents are shot at close range while the town is reduced to a charred ruin. Relief only comes when the exhausted rebels move off into the mountains where a strong body of Fermanagh militia and city yeomanry screen the capital from attack. They are recalled to the city on the 26th by the newly appointed Viceroy, Lord Cornwallis.