1st August 1798: Joseph Holt, twice wounded in the fighting in Meath, is mistakenly reported in Hibernian Telegraph to have been killed in Nobber. Holt, in reality, is secure in the heart of the Wicklow mountains rebuilding a sizeable and militant faction which raid Greenan and Humewood. O'Neil Stratford ascertains on July 28th that they "have cut trenches across the road in Aghavannagh & covered the same with slight sticks & rushes. . . in order to deceive the cavalry or cannoneers".
Mrs Ogle visits the recently apprehended Wexford leader Robert Carty of Birchgrove in the Newgate to express her gratitude to him for protecting her when in the hands of the insurgents. Her husband, Wexford MP George Ogle, is returned unopposed on the 24th to represent Dublin Corporation in parliament. Known for his vehement opposition to "concessions to the Catholics", Ogle's election is greeted with the strains of "The Protestant Boys". Cooke reflects on Ogle's ironic and prescient warnings to liberal opponent Lord Mountjoy, now deceased, "to take care that he did not fall the first sacrifice" to his principles.
On July 26th Robert Ross notes that "Neilson of Belfast is to be tried in a day or two. He pretends to be mad". Much less welcome is news that "Edward Fitzgerald and William Aylmer. . . and are to transport themselves. Every man in Dublin that is loyal is extremely angry at this business. They are two of the greatest and most cruel scoundrels." Even greater disquiet is caused by news that government has negotiated a pact with around 80 "state prisoners" in Kilmainham and Newgate prisons. Leading republicans will not be brought to trial and the cancellation of Bond's execution signals an end to the Special Commission's work.
Unknown to the public is the fact that the paucity of evidence has fatally undermined the ability of crown prosecutors to secure convictions against the vast majority of untried conspirators. Arthur O'Connor, Addis Emmet, Sampson, Jackson and their comrades assent to banishment for life and the production of a full account of their plots. This mollifies the notoriously hard line Lord Chancellor but William Hartigan, president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, feels the "great mortification" and "discontent" caused by "the lenity, nay, the kindness, that the rebels are treated with".
Armed bodies have recently appeared in Kilkenny and a minor battle fought near Clonmel where 17 Tipperary rebels of a 500- to 600-strong crowd die confronting the military under Maj Gen Myers at NineMile-House. Myers was travelling to Cork when diverted to meet the rebels with just 80 militia and yeomen. Alarms were also sounded in Enniskillen, where 60 are arrested, and Newtownlimivady, where a "regiment of rebels" is uncovered, but Wicklow is by far the most disturbed sector in Ireland. Cornwallis, on returning from Blessington's ruins, decides on the 28th to "send Gen John Moore and Lord Huntley with the 100th regiment and some troops that can be depended upon, to try either to subdue them or invite them to surrender, for the shocking barbarity of our national troops would be more likely to provoke rebellion than to suppress it". The tolerant Highlanders have hitherto eschewed the polarising influences of orangeism and are not prone to atrocious conduct. Writing on August 2nd George Stephenson claims the Light Companies camped outside Belfast are moving out as "they cannot agree with the orangemen".