The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-21 00:00:00

THE FENIAN INSURRECTION.

TEMr LE3fORE, Tuesday.

This pleasantly-situated, well-built little town
enjoys no better name for loyalty than that of most
other places of the same size in Tipperary. It was
for some time the residence of the notorious
4‘ General" Gleeson and his brother, whose errand
was, of course, to sow sedition, and who seem to
have succeeded in their errand. The district had
an unenviable reputation for agrarian outrages long
before Fenianism became a household word and a
national nuisance. It was near here that Mr. Ellis,
the agent of a resident landowner, after receiving
protection from the police for some time, was cruelly
shot on the high road, when returning home one

evening, without protection some seviin years ago.
The landowner in question, Mr. Trant, of Tovi-
house, has himself been threatened with death, and
can hardly venture out without a police escort. Can
life be worth having under such conditions? The
English traveller in these parts, notwithstanding
the mildness and good nature of the people, whose
manners are very winning to the stranger, sees and
hears much to remind him of the deadly feud which
has existed, and is not yet at an end, between the
owner and the tiller of the soil. At Tipperary you
are shown the room in which Hayes shot Captain
Braddell, and then walked away in broad daylight
through the crowded street—it was market day—
no man offering to arrest him. At Dundrum the
other day I saw a gentleman, now Lord Hawarden's
agent, who was also shot on the road ; the two men
who had wounded him looked into the window of
the house in which he crept for refuge, and seeing
him bleeding and senseless went away, satisfied that
their work was sufficiently done. The victim, how-
ever, recovered, though he will always carry with
him the assassins' mark.

Templemore is a garrison town, and the troops
now stationed here have the advantage of tolerably
comfortable barracks. There was not much chance
of an attack upon the town or even of disturbance;
but the usual midnight visits were paid to houses
of the better sort in the neighbourhood in search of
arms. 'Three or four miles from Templemore is a
mountain called the Devil's Bit. It is a prominent
object from the railway, and the legend which gives
it this peculiar name relates to the arch fiend, who
in his travels being so hungry as to be in no way
particular, bit off a huge morsel of the mountain,
but not relishing the flavour, or finding the morsel
somewhat tough, spat it out again some miles to the
east, where it forms the Rock of Cashel. Incredulous
persons may doubt the legend if they will, but there
is the huge gap in the mountain full in view, and
exactly corresponding with a giant's bite, and there
is the rock of Cashel to refute them. The Devil's
Bit Mountain was the appointed rendezvous of the
insurgents in this district on the night of Shrove
Tuesday. Information was received in Templemore
of an intended attack on Mr. Trant's house, and a
party of police and soldiers were marching on Wed-
nesday to defend it, when they saw a body of about
200 Fenians at some few hundred yards distance,
armed, seven or eight with guns and the rest with
pikes. The constabulary who were in the van fired
upon the party, one of whom was seen to fall. The
rest hesitated for a moment, but seeing the gleam-
ing bayonets of the soldiers behind they broke and
ran. This is supposed to have been the party which
burnt Roskeer barrack, and shot a man named
Tracy because he refused to join them. The con-
stabulary and soldiers did not follow in pursuit,
being hurried on to the relief of Tovi-house, the
inmates of which, however, suffered no molestation.
From one house near Templemore the insurgents
got five pounds' worth of bread for their commis-
sariat, at another one of their leaders bought two
gallons of whisky, and revived their drooping
courage with a dram all round. When the moun-
tain was afterwards searched the police found a
horse and car, supposed to belong to the Gleesons,
which had been used to convey the commissariat
and the pikes. The Fenian orders, communicated to
the assembled host in the Bit, were vacillating, and
did not re-assure men who were cheered by no single
feat of arms in any part of the country. So they
scattered in a very short time, returning each man
to his own home. The people who had collected
the arms declared that they wanted them only
for a fortnight. But the Templemore campaign
lasted not two days, much less two weeks. In one
or two cases, I believe, the arms taken have been
returned ; generally, of course, the borrowers have
not thought themselves bound by the self-imposed
limit of time. Before and at the time of the outbreak
the usual run upon the bank took place here; and one
of the small farmers lost every penny of the money
which he then withdrew. After receiving some £6O at
the bank counter he turned homewards, but hearing
that the Fenians were coming he hid his gold care-
fully under a large stone in some hedge bottom.
Perhaps some person saw the irregular deposit, and
when the cast was clear afterwards walked off with
the money ; perhaps the farmer, in his excitement,
forgot the landmark, and was unable to find the
stone which covered his wealth,—anyhow he is in-
cansolable, for the money is not.
The same spirit which leads to agrarian crime in
this country—the determination to take vengeance,
ett.th man for his own supposed wrong—induced last
week an atrocious attempt to murder a supposed in-
former near this place. A man named Carroll had
been arrested with some other Fenians, but as there
was little or no evidence against him he was dismissed,
the other men being retained in custody. The local
Fenians appear to have come to the conclusion that
Carroll had given information to the authorities, and
that he was liberated on this account. Some of them,
therefore, waylaid him on his return home and
hacked his body in the most savage manner. He was
beaten about the head, there was a great gash in his
throat, and there werestabsin his stomach as though
from a bowie knife. The poor man was found some
time after wards on the road near Borrisoleigh. The
wonder is that he did not bleed to death ; probably
the extreme cold prevented this. To-day he still
survives, but lies in a most precarious condition in
the hospital at Thurles. Carroll is a fine, robust
young fellow ; a man of less vitality could not have
lived so long after receiving injuries so terrible. His
would-be murderers probably know by this time that
they attacked the wrong man. The police really
had information which led to the arrests, but Carroll
was not the informer.

A milesman, employed on the Great Southern
and Western line near Kilmallock, states that on
Saturday evening a party of Fenians came to him
while engaged upon the railway, and made him
swear to deliver up his tools at a given hoar on the
day following. As these tools enable anybody pos-
sessing them to wrench up the rails with ease, the
information thus supplied was significant, and a
party of constabulary and soldiers was sent at the
proper time to the point indicated by the milesman,
but nobody appeared. The man says that he can
identify one of the persons who compelled him to
take the oath. Before and during this abortive
rising the Fenians seem to have persuaded or com-
pelled a large number of people to take oaths of one
sort or other ; but too much protesting, on oath or
otherwise, is a sign of weakness in any cause. I
have already mentioned the precaution taken upon
the Great Southern and Western line in sending a
pilot engine in advance of the night mail ; and if
the milesman's story be true, this precaution is not
unnecessary. Of course the removal of rails now
can only be suggested by a spirit of mischief and a
wicked disregard of life ; the time has gone by for
excusing such an act, from the insurgent point of

view, as a piece of necessary strategy. But the
apprehension of danger to this train has seriously
affected the traffic by it, and night after night brings
to Limerick Junction an array of empty carriages.
For sonic days past, from all the railway stations
in this and the neighbouring counties, young men
have left in considerable numbers for Cork, en route
to America. Those best able to form an opinion have
no doubt that these persona have been more or less
concerned in the late outbreak. Feeling that the
game is up, they are getting out of harm's way, or
are leaving in disgust a country which remains in-
sensible to the blessings of Republicanism. On the
principle that you should build a bridge for a flying
foe, the constabulary, who watch narrowly at each
station all arrivals and departures, offer no opposi-
tion to this Fenian exodus. One is only tempted
to say to each of these emigrants what the Arch-
bishop a Grenada ;said in lisnaiging Gil 1313,61