06/07/2022
1798 FOLKLORE FROM RATHVILLY, CO. CARLOW
This short post records a worthy story I found in an old journal of Carlow Historical and Archaeological Society, Carloviana.
The article relates to folklorist, teacher and Irish Republican, Edward O’Toole (1860-1943), who is still renowned across Carlow and west Wicklow for his amazing recordings of folklore that is related to that district. He is more better known as the schoolteacher of Kevin Barry, the boy of eighteen summers who was hanged in Mountjoy Gaol in November 1920, who was briefly educated in his mother’s home area of Rathvilly in the early 1900s.
In the 1880s, O’Toole recorded the stories of an aged gentleman named James Ryan. Here are his notes:
“In the early ‘80’s (1880s) of the last century there lived in Rathvilly a very old man named James Ryan. He was a tailor by trade and always dressed in a frock coat and wore a ‘beever’ hat. I was at that time about 22 or 23 years old and took great pleasure in listening to the stories of Mr. Ryan - as he was invariably called. He was born in Williamstown in the Parish of Rathvilly and his mother was closely related to Michael Dwyer, the ‘insurgent Captain of the Wicklow Mts’ - a first cousin, I believe. In his youth he went to England and settled down in Manchester where he started in business and got married. His wife and family having died he gave up his business and came back to Rathvilly ‘to die in peace at last,’ in his native place...Mr Ryan told me that he remembered the Battle of Hacketstown in June 1798. He was at that time about 3 years old and he remembered the terror in which the country people stood of the Yeomen and the Hessians. ‘Hussions’ he called them. There was a ford across the Dereen (River) at Williamstown and he said he saw the ’Yeomen’ and ‘Hessians’ crossing the ford from Coolmanna (Coolmanagh) into Williamstown - the red coats of the soldiers having left an indelible impression on his memory. The menkind must have been at this battle for he said the women and children left the houses and ran away across the fields to Knocklishen and Knockveagh to Knockboy. On a plain called the ‘Alley’ there were caves in which they hid. He distinctly remembered his mother (Dwyer’s cousin) carrying him in her arms and other women carrying their children...As Mr. Ryan died about 1885 he had a knowledge of Irish political movements from the Rebellion of 1798 to the formation of the Land League in 1880. He was a very intelligent and gentlemanly old man and was highly respected by all who knew him.”
Carloviana, 1971, p.27.
Indeed James Ryan died in 1885, 4 May 1885, to be exact, aged 94 years, thus confirming the age given by Ryan to Edward O’Toole.
Rathvilly had suffered greatly on 24th May 1798, as described by Miles Byrne of Monaseed, who happened to travel through Rathvilly on the following morning as he saw the smoke of Carlow rising in the distance and mentioned the First Battle of Hacketstown. These battles occurred on 25 May.
“We got no farther news until we reached Hacketstown in the evening (24 May), and on entering it, poor Ned Nowlan (of Monaseed) was met by a clerk of Ralph Blaney’s of Carnew, Effy Page, who arrested him and had him put into prison immediately… (The next morning) We had heard during the night from the country people, that Rathvilly was attacked, and also the town of Carlow; we hoped to meet the insurgents somewhere or other in force but unfortunately, we were again cruelly disappointed. Passing at Rathvilly we saw a great number of men lying dead on the roadside, where they had been killed the day before by the military who were quartered there.”
Image: The Watermill, Rathvilly, Co. Carlow
Posted by: Colum Ó Ruairc
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