The late Dr George Hadden of Wexford, a venerable figure steeped in the history of his native town, and founder of the Old Wexford Society, once opined that the 1798 rebellion was ill-conceived.
Ill-conceived? It was in the sense that it led to the Act of Union, but the rebellion was inevitable because of the outrages committed by Crown forces in an endeavour to dislodge the United Irishmen movement before an expected French invasion - outrages that brought many Catholics and Protestants together in common bond. Arrangements to mark the bi-centenary of the rebellion are well advanced.
It is generally agreed that the rebellion failed for three main reasons: lack of arms - the pike was no match for guns; the rebel leaders' lack of military experience; and espionage.
General histories dealing of major events rarely carry accounts of the attributes and characteristics of the main participants. This is not so in the case of the 1798 rebellion, thanks to the memoirs, among others, of Sir Jonah Barrington, who lived through the rebellion and was friendly with many of the rebel leaders.
Barrington was born in Knapton, near Abbeyleix, in 1760. He qualified as a barrister, entered the Irish Parliament as a member for Tuam and later was appointed judge of the Admiralty Court.
Wrote memoirs in Paris
Knighted in 1807, he opposed the Act of Union, but a parliamentary investigation found that he had misappropriated funds paid into the Admiralty Court and he fell from grace and died in Paris, where most of his memoirs were written.
Of Bagenal Harvey, commander of the insurgents in Wexford, Barrington observed: "a more unprepossessing or unmartial-like person was never moulded by capricious nature." Like Barrington, Harvey was called to the Bar.
He was a son of one of the six Clerks of Chancery who, having amassed a considerable fortune, purchased the estate and castle of Bargy. Bagenal Harvey and Barrington were at school together, and Barrington wrote further of Harvey: "His person was extremely unimposing. He was about five feet four inches in height. His sharp, peaked chin never approached towards a contact with his cravat, but left a thin scraggy throat to give an impoverished hungry cast to the whole contour by no means adapted to the mien and port of commander of forces."
However, Barrington continued: "Yet Harvey was a very good-tempered, friendly man and a hearty companion. In common life, he was extremely well-conducted and in the society of the Bar often amusing and never out of humour. He had an ample store of individual courage, feared not single combat, fought several duels intrepidly, though I do not think he ever provoked one. He shot Sir Harding Giffard, late Chief Justice of Ceylon.
"Utterly unfit"
"He was a person of the best fortune in his quarter of the county, of a Protestant family and, being charitable and benevolent to his tenantry, was much beloved by them . . . However, he suffered his vanity so far to overcome his judgment as, without the slightest experience, to assume command of a great army, for which purpose there were few men in Ireland so utterly unfit."
Yet despite all this, Barrington permits himself the opinion that "had Harvey captured New Ross, all Munster would have risen in his cause."
Barrington was well disposed towards Captain Keogh, the rebel governor of Wexford, probably because Keogh was married to an aunt of Barrington's wife. But as a royalist, Barrington disapproved of Keogh's part in the rebellion. Barrington wrote of Keogh: "I never knew two persons much more dissimilar than were the commander-in-chief, Harvey, and the rebel governor of Wexford, Captain Keogh. The latter was a retired captain of the British service, who had fought in America and like many others, had there received a lesson on civil liberty which never escaped his memory.
"For many years when I went on circuit, I lived at his house and had conceived the greatest friendship for him. He was a very clever man. . .On the surrender of the town, Keogh was immediately convicted under martial law. . .He was hanged and beheaded on the old bridge of Wexford of which he was also a proprietor, and his head was exhibited on a spike over the courthouse door. His brother, a retired major in the British army, upon the rebels taking the place tried to dissuade his brother from accepting the office of governor, but failing in the attempt, he retired to his own room and immediately blew his brains out."
Grogan's execution
Barrington also deplored the execution by Crown forces of Cornelius Grogan, who at the time occupied Johnstown Castle, once the home of the noted Esmonde family. Grogan - a noted loyalist, incidentally - had been high-sheriff and representative in parliament for the county.
At this unfortunate period, Barrington states: "he had passed his 70th year, and was such a martyr to gout that his hands was wrapped up in flannel and he was carried, half hobbling upon crutches, to the place of execution."
According to Barrington, Grogan's only offence was that he gave an order for some bread to be supplied to a woman, and the order was approved by the insurgents.
Barrington was, of course, a loyalist who had no sympathy for the United Irishman or the rebellion, but he castigated loyalists guilty of atrocious behaviour.
Of course there were atrocities on both sides in the 1798 rebellion, and on this aspect, Barrington had this to say: "I must in truth and candour say (and I say it with reluctance) that during the most sanguinary scenes, the brutal conduct of certain frantic loyalists was at least on a parallel with that of the frantic rebels." The last word has not been written on the 1798 rebellion.