THE 1798 rebellions in Wexford and Ulster occurred around the same year, yet in almost complete isolation from one another. The Stewart book on the Antrim and Down events contains only two references to Wexford he writes that the Wexford uprising "had the fervour of a religious crusade, fuelled by ancient hatreds of class and creed."
The reality, as portrayed in the Gahan book, was more complex. Yes, there were appalling atrocities on both sides in Wexford but there was also idealism and courage and, at times, visionary leadership. Dramatic as the Ulster events were, they pale in comparison with the Wexford epic. Epic in the aims, ambitions and achievements of the United Irish movement epic, too, in the scale of the tragedy, the loss of life, destruction of property and the injection of a new bitterness into the "ancient quarrel" between Ireland and England.
Both of these books are remarkably detailed, yet the narrative never flags in either case. Behind the scholarly detachment, one senses a genuine love of the subject. Each is writing, after all, about his native heath.
In little more than a month in Wexford, over 30,000 people died. There are more than a few echoes of Bosnia in Gahan's pages but there are also flashes of human decency transcending the bitterness between the two sides. He tells the remarkable story of the loyalist woman who, in the aftermath of the failed rebellion, hid over 20 republican combatants in her farmyard. Receiving a surprise visit from her husband, a militia officer, she swore him to secrecy as she introduced him to his former enemies. After a friendly chat the officer left, but he never betrayed them.
Gahan tries to give us not just the facts of the rebellion but the probable state of mind of the participants at different stages in the saga. The Wexford rising was supposed to be part of a general insurrection and when the awful truth dawned on them, the rebel leaders were left with a terrible dilemma. Should they continue and hope for French aid or should they sue for peace and pray for leniency from the authorities?
There were "diehard" and moderate elements in the United Irish leadership. The moderates such as Matthew Keogh, a Protestant merchant in Wexford town, tried to promote good relations between loyalists and republicans and to restrain the sectarian killer Thomas Dixon. Conscious that the rising was doomed, Keogh sought the cooperation of the authorities in bringing about a peaceful settlement but they hanged him on Wexford bridge like the others, then left his head on a spike outside the courthouse for months.
Father Murphy "of old Kilcormack" features surprisingly little in the book. He was surely right to absent himself from the insane assault on Arklow, where hundreds of United Irish fighters were shot down as they charged across open ground against a well armed enemy firing from trenches.
One of the few questions left unanswered in this comprehensive account is why Father Murphy disappeared after a skirmish near Scullogue Gap in the northwest of the county on June 26th, when the rising was on the wane. "He appears to have deliberately abandoned the United Irish cause," writes Gahan, a conclusion, that will not be to everyone's liking.
In Gahan's view, the nearest the Wexford rising had to an overall leader was Edward Roche of Garrylough. The leadership cadre was a remarkable group if they had met the success of their counterparts in America they might have built a model republic from the Model County.
A.T.Q. Stewart is one of this island's most distinguished historians, aptly described by Enoch Powell as "the doyen of Ulster historiography". He writes beautifully and has gone to painstaking lengths to visit and inspect the sites of the battles and other events described in his book.
Riddled with informers, the United Irish movement in Ulster was probably doomed from the start. Although Ulster was the heartland of the movement, the level of military skill was higher in the Wexford branch. With delicate skill, Stewart portrays the sober righteouseness of the Ulster Presbyterian, still in evidence today, though mostly in a different cause.
The author dwells little on the ideology which motivated the rebels where, as the Americans say, they were "coming from". He recounts the incident in which a Munster Catholic called Larry Dempsey caused consternation by urging his contingent of Ulster Presbyterians into battle with the words "By Jasus, boys, we'll pay the rascals this day for the Battle of the Boyne."
The Ulster leaders were at least as remarkable and impressive as their Wexford Counterparts. Stewart notes that Henry Munro, one of the key figures in the insurrection, was a direct descendant of Major General Robert Munro who was defeated by Owen Roe O'Neill at the Battle of Benburb in 1646. Another leader, the attorney James Dickey, complained prior to his execution that the Presbyterians had been deceived by their Catholic allies. He warned ominously that if the Rebellion had succeeded they would have had to fight the Catholics next. Such was Dickey's composure in the shadow of the gallows that he was able to write out a legal claim on a debtor, ensuring that the money would be paid instead to one of his woman friends. Lawyer to the last, he was hanged five minutes later.
Stewart gives a moving account of Henry Joy McCracken's capture and execution, based largely on the letters of Mary Ann, his sister. She herself lived until 1866 and we are fortunate to have a photograph of her in old age.
In a proclamation issued in Wexford on June 7th, 1798, Edward Roche forecast "Posterity will read with astonishment, the heroic acts achieved by a people strangers to military tactics, and having few professional commanders but what power can resist men fighting for liberty?"
In these two books, Daniel Gahan and ATQ Stewart have served posterity well.