In noting that Philip Bernard of the 1756 militia is still to the good in Carlow towns Volunteers we also note the name Lieutenant Sam Carpenter as well as Major Eustace and Henry Rudkin. We meet them again as magistrates in 1798 in Farrell's account: "Carpenter, who was the Major Sirr of the day, a man with sour countenance and sharp spiteful accent"³¹ "a compound of spite and bitterness".³² Farrell's idyllic recall of the Volunteer era seems at odds with this - and of course it is, for the Volunteers must be set in the context of their time, class and place. That done I suggest the story can be the more readily understood. For example most of the Volunteer officers' surnames recur in the Yeomanry corps first raised in 1796.

But before going on to the Yeomanry there was another force raised by Government earlier, in 1793, to meet the threat posed by the messianism of the French revolution and the radicalism that had encouraged nearer home. The Irish militia of 1793 was as heretofore raised on a county, city and county borough basis but it is different from the earlier militia forces in two major ways (1) Roman Catholics could legally join and (2) the units never served in their counties of origin. The officer corps, given the property base, were mostly of the protestant landed class. In Carlow they were initially Colonel Henry Bruen; Major Walter Kavanagh; Captains Thomas Whelan. Philip and John Newton; Lieutenants John Wolseley, John Bennett, John Leckay, William Astle, Abraham Jones, Constantine Brough; Ensigns William Carter, Ashley Crofton Jur, Joseph Malone, - Haggerty, Jnr_t and Adjutant John Wolseley.

Rather obviously this force too - at officer level - can be fitted into a pattern.  The names Kavanagh; Whelan, Wolseley and Astle are all familiar from the early lists while Hagarty, Carter and Jones are all yeomanry surnames also.

One notices however no Butler among them as they were among the Volunteers despite Bill Nolan's admittedly fictional note on Crosby and Butler appearing to remain outside that movement.³³ But then, though dating the force correctly³⁴ Bill Nolan than goes on to have Butler raise a militia company and retain them locally on his own estate.³⁵ It is as if the author wished in some way to absolve Butler from the actual officership in the Carlow Rangers or the Garryhundon corps of yeomanry held by the actual Butler of the day. This overlooks two points (a) again, that the Carlow militia never served at home - indeed Ryan gives a brief account of their movements up to 1802³⁶; and (b) that the yeomanry corps answer more to the very type of force being depicted in that section of the novel. These are flaws that in my mind detract from the overall impact of the novel, and more is the pity - as vingnettes tallying with Farrell such as this, on "Sam Carpenter, a weasel-faced attorney who had been created a magistrate just prior to the troubles_, and had proved a fit instrument for his master's purposes,"³⁷ show.

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