The Warwickshire Herald. — 1886-05-06 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

SURPRISE OF THE BARRACK OF PROSPEROUS.  AT the present juncture, when the infatuated Premier is moving every power of despotism and political chicane to coerce his reluctant followers into supporting his Irish Disruption Bill, it is well to look back at the manner in which Irishmen acted before the Union. and from the inimitable series of illustrations fortunately placed at our disposal, to gather some idea of the class of acts which, in the opinion of Pitt, rendered the Union absolutely necessary—if the dissolution of society in Ireland was to be prevented. It is idle to say that the Irish had great and just grievances in respect of Roman Catholic disabilities, for we all know that Roman Catholics in England, too, were in those days equally hardly used. It would be monstrous indeed to suggest any excuse for the devilish cruelties which in the 1798 rebellion disgraced the Irish nation, and proved for all time that the Irish people, in dealing with Protestants, are more pitiless than tigers in their ferocity and bloodthirstiness. After the vile atrocities that have occurred in Ireland of late years, no one can doubt that the same spirit of evil is in the people, and that it is ready to break forth so soon as ever it gets a chance. God grant that chance may never come I It was after the first abortive attempt to seize Dublin on the 23rd of May, 1797, when the infamous Neilson had fallen ingloriously into the hands of the Loyalists, and the Sheares had proved themselves as incapable of leading as they were arrogant in assumption—it was after these events, and the proclamations of Lord Lake and the Lord Mayor, decreeing martial law and the surrender of arms, that Captain .Swayne, who commanded the small garrison of Prosperous—about seventeen miles from Dublin—by incredible stupidity permitted the peasantry to enter the town at night for the alleged purpose of giving up their arms. Musgrave's account of the result is as follows • "About. two o'clock on Thursday morning, the 24th of May, the two sentinels were surprised and killed, and both the barracks were assaulted while the soldiers were asleep. The barracks of the Cork company consisted of a hall, an apartment on each side, the same in the next story and underground offices. A party of the rebels rushed into Captain Swayne's apartment, which was on the groundfloor, and murdered him. Some soldiers who slept in the opposite apartment, alarmed at the noise, came forth with their firelocks and expelled those ruffians from the barrack, after having killed two or three of them. "The house was at that time surrounded with a great number of rebels variously armed. A fierce conflict ensued between the assailants and the besieged ; but it was soon put an end to by the following malignant device of the former. There was a great quantity of straw in the underground office, to which the rebels set fire, and to increase the flames introduced some faggots into it. The soldiers were soon in a state of suffocation, and the heat being so great that they could not endure it, they retreated to their comrades in the uppr story; but the flames and smoke soon reached them there, as the rebels continued to introduce lighted faggots into the apartments under them. Enveloped with thick smoke and overcome with heat, some of them leapt out of the windows, but were immediately reeeired on the pikes of the assailants, who gore dreadful yell prhenerer that occurred. "At last, the barrack being in a state of conflagration, the soldiers resolved to rush forward and tight their way through their assailants ; but they, who were very numerous, iormed a half-moon round the front of the barrack, and received them on their pikes. so that but few of them escaped." This was but the beginning of evils. and though indicating in glaring colours both the treachery and cruelty of the Irish character it by no means equals in horror what we shall chronicle and illustrate with Cruikshank's inimitable sketches in our succeeding issues. It is high time that the people of this generation should know on what a retiree Mr. Gladstone has placed the loyal Irish. Let all men who would prevent the repetition of the dark deeds of 1798 combine to stay the }rind of the madman who is bent on wrecking the Empire.