The Embodiment of the Militia in
County Carlow
By No auther
Tithe
Unrest
was reported in the summer of 1793: 'desperate bands greatest in the
Queen's County immediately adjoining the town of Carlow committed
several outrages before being brought to a halt at Cooper-Hill, seat of
the High Sheriff of that County. County meetings at Carlow make no
mention of 'Applotters of tythes.'1 and at a general meeting
of Queen's County convened by the High Sheriff of that county
responsibility seems to have been fixed squarely on 'many people in
these parts who have gone through the county, promoting sedition' and ..
'misleading the lower classes by
various apprehensions.
This is not implying that county Carlow
was innoculated against all contagion from tithe war-fare. A letter
from Carlow stated that the trouble was near the town and that in fact
three suspected persons had been lodged in the goal there. For a short
time it must have appeared as though a minor uprising was under way.
Houses had been raided for fire-arms and a mob had threatened to
attack the town unless the three suspected persons lodged in the goal
there were released on bail. Their terms were met with and, they in
turn fulfilled their part of the bargain by surrendering the stolen
arms.2 The fact that the local authorities—presumably the
Sheriff and magistrates—were forced to yield before an unruly mob was
a comment on the need for the Militia then being embodied. How much
this outburst was a protest against superimposed structures whether of
tithe or militia it is hard to say. Earlier, mid May riots had been
reported among the colliery and quarry workers in protest against the
Militia, then being embodied in Carlow.3
The ostensible objection was to
recruiting by ballot rather than through volunteering. These rioters
were from the same area as the tithe 'applotters' and they may merely
have added the old grievance of tithe to bolster their opposition by
violence, to the Militia embodiment. The Queen's County meeting
implies that the ignorance and fears of these men were played on by
others for their own ends. And violence was the only form of protest
the colliers could understand.
During this outbreak of tithe trouble in
Queen's County, Carlow was more particularly occupied with opposition
to embodiment of the Militia rather than tithe problems. McNally cites
the colliers riots in mid-May mentioned above as an example of what
happened when the people did not understand the provisions of the
Bill. Once these were clear he gives the impression that all
anti-Militia activity in the county came to an end. And these riots
could be considered as without the county, strictly speaking. There
was trouble nearer home however. Henry Bruen had been appointed
Colonel of the Militia for county Carlow. Sometime towards the end of
May 'a most barbarous attempt' was made on his life.4 The
gentlemen of the county who assembled to cope with this emergency were
convinced that the Militia Law had been misrepresented to the common
people; and we heartily assure them that the Militia cannot be sent
out of the Kingdom, or turned over to the standing army.' Such
suspected misrepresentations dovetail with the 'various apprehensions'
which had disrupted the people in the neighbouring Queen's County.
Bruen in reply to the Address sent to him by the 'respectable
inhabitants' attributed the upsurge to the same caused A newspaper
comment on the same date noted that the trouble in Carlow seemed now
at an end and young men were actually volunteering for service in the
Militia since its true implications were explained to them.5
The previous 'mistrust and alarm' were attributed to the 'secret
machinations of a gentleman or two who are accused of opposing the
Militia system from motives of a private nature. Possible motives were
the usurpation by the Militia system of the role of the volunteers or
chagrin because, owing to the property qualifications they failed to
obtain commissions. There is no clue as to the identity of the
'gentleman or two' in the county to whom such motives could be imputed
but such reactions would be normal where hopes were frustrated or
jealously generated.
Whoever was responsible the unrest
continued for some time. The pride of the loyal Roman Catholics of
Myshall was wounded because of 'a most wicked and malicious report
hath been lately spread abroad "that several of the inhabitants of
this town did assemble near Tullow, with an intent to administer
unlawful oaths to the inhabitants of the said town." 'Such an
accusation tended to 'asperse our loyalty to our most gracious and
much-beloved sovereign, and injure us in the eyes of the public.' This
declaration was signed by the chairman John Nowlan and the parish
priest Bryan Kavanagh 'for self and congregation' and transmitted to
their Justice of the Peace, Robert Cornwall of Myshall Lodge.
Cornwall's reply was published immediately below it and was as
reassuring as outraged innocence could require.7 And as
McNally points out, quoting the Dublin Evening Post for 25 June
'recruits were offering themselves to the Colonel in such numbers that
he could raise the unit without balloting,' though in fact balloting
was proceeded with. A letter from Carlow gives an account of the
balloting:8
'The ballot for the Militia commenced at
Carlow on Saturday last. Instead of any kind of opposition being
given, or the least appearance of discontent, the different parishes
then appointed to be drawn came forward, and cheerfully submitted to
their lot; one parish particularly (Myshall) whose quota amounted to
no more than fifteen men, assembled to the number of 200, and preceded
by Robert Cornwall, Esq. a magistrate for the said county, entered the
Courthouse, when after supplying the number, to a man voluntarily
offered their services as substitutes, in case any other part of the
county should be desirous of being excused.'
Despite this encomium which reads almost
like a ministerial wall-papering, cracks appeared here and there in
the county. On 17 June Phil Kennedy remarked in a letter to Samuel
Faulkner on the continued unrest in the county.9 Sections
of the common people were so agitated that they had gone to the
lengths of taking arms' from most of the neighboring gentlemen. They
visited Mr. Roche and Mr. Alexander but I hope they will soon be
quelled, the gentlemen is (sic) to interfere and cause them to give up
their arms, if not the army will march out tomorrow and destroy them.'
A week later he makes a somewhat similar report and adds: 'the army
will be quartered in their very houses so that they cannot stir.'
Exaggerated accounts of the disturbances had evidently reached Dublin
for Kennedy continues '…. but the report of many lives been (sic) lost
is wrong in the affray between the soldiers and the mob their (sic)
was not one killed.' In August 1797 Robert Cornwall reporting on
unlawful assembly he had broken up, recollected that there had been a
'great deal of unrest among the lower classes in (the undicipherable)—between
Carlow and Wexford when the insurrection against the Militia took
place.10 Bowden had remarked on the decayed conditions of
'towns' in this area and enlarged at some length on the dreary
conditions of Clonegal, a border village.11 A readiness to
revolt on any pretext may have been the expression of the poor to
relatively miserable conditions.
McNally states that in the case of Carlow
there is no mention of Militia bounties but where things went well
there was often some lubrication. Four guineas a man was the
lubricating oil which eased the tension in county Carlow and enabled
Bruen to set the Militia machinery in operation2 The
gentlemanly methods of keeping up the quota of men must have proved
inadequate after all, because the following year Hugh Faulkner wrote
to his brother as follows: T sent to Carlow for lime on Friday and the
boy was obliged to make his escape with the horses from the Militia as
they were pressing all they could find.13
As McNally remarks one could read too
much into the anti-militia movement. Some kind of riot was the common
reaction to anything new especially coming from authority and similar
instances are quoted by him for England and Scotland when a Militia
Act was put into effect there.14 Its significance lies in
the fact that ignorance, fear and prejudice were there to be exploited
especially in the more rural areas, by anyone who understood the
mentality of such people well enough to win their confidence and work
on their primitive reactions and channel it to his own cause. And a
chronic weak spot such as that remarked on by Cornwall offered easy
access, if not the best staying power.
Footnotes
1. Information
as to tithe for County Carlow is singularly difficult to come across
and, when found, to assess. Whether this indicates in a negative way
that tithe was not a major issue then it is not easy to decide. In the
years of deflation which followed the end of the Napoleonic wars it
was, of course, a burning issue. Some farming out of tithes was
evidently common as appears from the following extract from Finn's
Leinster Journal, 30 Nov. 1781: 'To be let from 25th day of March
next. The Rectorial tythes of old Leighlin for the term of 21 years.
Proposals will be received by Rev. William Walter of Barrow Lodge,
near Athy, on or before the 1st day of Dec. next, and the tenant
declared on the 8th day of said month, on which day a Chapter will be
held in the town of Carlow.' By order of the Chapter of St. Lazerian,
Leighlin. Thomas Curly, Jun. Leighlin.
2.
Finn's Leinster Journal, 19 June 1793.
3.
Sir Henry McNally, The Irish Militia (Dublin) 1943,, p.40.
4.
Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 1 June 1793.
5.
Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 21 May 1793.
6. Ibid.
21 May 1793: 'the invidious designs of the malcontents to render the
Militia unpopular, are defeated by the judicious publication of an
abstract of the Act of Parliament. Such has been the effect of that
communication, that in Carlow, where the people were for some time the
dupes of their credulity, a total change of sentiment has taken place,
and the volunteers are offering themselves in such numbers to Colonel
Bruen that he could raise ten-fold the establishment of that County,
without resorting to the obligations of the Act.' Dublin Gazette 2 May
1793 shows that Carlow was one of the first counties ordered to be
embodied—•' . . . General
meeting of the Governors and Deputy Governors will be held . . . for
the purpose of embodying the Militia of said county. . . .'
7.
Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 11 June 1793.
8.
Walker's Hibernian Magazine 1793, paraphrased by McNally op. cit.,
p.41.
9.
Faulkner papers.
10.
24 August 1797. Memorandum of interview with Cornwall on state
of Ireland. Cooks the Undersecretary (Rebellion Papers, 620/34/8).
11.
Bowden, Charles Topham. A Tour Through Ireland (Dublin, 1791),
pp. 106-107.
12.
Phil Kennedy to Samuel Faulkner at Stephen's Green, 7 July 1793
...,'... the Colonel has his Militia almost completed as he is giving
four guineas a man bounty.'
13. Ibid.
Hugh Faulkner to same. 4 May 1794 (Faulkner Papers).
14.
McNally, op. cit. p.37.
Note:
Oliver D. Cresswell, Irish Medals (Belfast, 1961). In this work
Cresswell commenting on the county Carlow or 23 Regiment of Militia
states: 'This unit does not seem to have been on active service . . .'
Ryan, in his Antiquities p.313, gives the circuit of the Regiment. It
was stationed in Navan in 1798 'and from whence it proceeded to
Nittstown, on the banks of the Boyne where an action took place with
the rebels. The latter fled almost immediately, although they were in
great numbers.
Source:
Carloviana
1973, Pages 13 & 14
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