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Anthony Perry (c. 1760– 21 July 1798), known as the "screeching general" was one of the most important leaders of the United Irish Wexford rebels during the 1798 rebellion.
Perry was born in County Down, Ireland to a Protestant family and lived a prosperous life at Inch, [1] near the Wexford/Wicklow border as a gentleman farmer.
He enlisted in the local yeomanry corps as a second lieutenant responding to the Government's appeal to save the kingdom from radicalism during the height of anti-Jacobin paranoia in the mid-1790s. He took the United Irish Oath in 1797 and was made a colonel.[ citation needed ]
As a United Irish colonel, Perry was responsible for the organisation and recruitment of the movement in north Wexford. A measure of this success was evident by the fact that the brutal coercion campaign unleashed by the Government 1797–98 did not identify Wexford as a United Irish stronghold until barely a month before the eventual outbreak.[ citation needed ]
The arrival of the counter-insurgency campaign in Wexford, embodied by the dispatch of the North Cork Militia, ensured that high-profile radicals like Perry would be the first to be subjected to arrest and interrogation. On 23 May Perry was arrested and taken by the North Cork Militia to Gorey for interrogation. [2]
After enduring 48 hours of torture including being pitchcapped, Perry broke and revealed some names of comrades in the south Wexford movement but little of the north Wexford organisation. [3] Acting upon the information tortured out of him,[ citation needed ] the authorities released Perry on 26 May and concentrated mainly on a round-up of the United Irish leaders in Wexford town.[ citation needed ]
While the authorities concentrated on extracting intelligence about the rebel organisation from southern leaders such as Bagenal Harvey, Edward Fitzgerald, and John Henry Colclough, the rebellion erupted rapidly after being sparked off by a clash at The Harrow where rebels under Fr. John Murphy attacked and defeated a small yeoman cavalry force. A bloody series of raids for arms and attacks on loyalist forces ensued across the northern half of the county countered by roaming bands of yeomen burning and killing indiscriminately. Victories at battle of Oulart Hill and Enniscorthy followed, leaving the rebels in total control of the area between Enniscorthy and Gorey by 29 May.
Despite his horrific wounds, Perry reported to the rebel camp at Vinegar Hill, Enniscorthy on 29 May and was appointed as second in command to the northern army. [4] His first command ended in defeat when indiscipline and lack of firearms led to a bloody defeat by the militia at Ballyminaun Hill. However, he was then instrumental together with Fr. Edward Roche in planning the devastating counterattack upon an advancing British spearhead at the Battle of Tuberneering on 4 June which destroyed half of the British army in North Wexford in one fell swoop.
The victory at Tuberneering shocked the military who withdrew as far as Wicklow town to regroup in safety and gave Perry his nickname the "screeching general" from his practice of screaming at the enemy when leading rebel attacks. The rebels failed to follow up the victory despite the fact that much of County Wicklow, including Arklow town, was left unoccupied by the British during these critical days.
Part of the reason for this failure to effectively follow up the victory was undoubtedly down to the fact that the rebel forces lacked military discipline, but also that the victorious rebels took advantage of their new power to settle old scores by hunting down and taking revenge upon local enemies. For example, on 7 June, Perry led a raid upon Carnew, the scene of the Carnew executions of rebel suspects on 25 May, burning most of the town to the ground. He was also suspected of involvement in the execution of two of his yeomen torturers at the Gorey camp on 8 June. [5]
When the decision was finally taken to march on and capture Arklow, Perry's position of leadership was weakened by disagreement over tactics with Fr. John Murphy whose units refused to take part. The march on Arklow was also a leisurely affair with Perry having to personally plead with his men to desist from delaying by countless pausing for hurrahs as they passed his house en route. The disastrous defeat threw the rebels back on the defensive and Perry spent the following days re-organising the scattered rebel forces and skirmishing with probing British units.
By 18 June the British had built up a force of some 20,000 troops poised to strike from the north and west. Rebel forces under Perry withdrew from their base at Mountpleasant to meet the threat and formed a large camp at Kilcavan Hill in the north of the county. The British had not expected a large rebel force opposing them until Enniscorthy was reached and Perry's men threatened to throw the British plans into disarray after holding off several British attacks around Kilcavan Hill on 19–20 June. However, a decision was taken by the Rebel council on 20 June to consolidate all rebel forces in Wexford at the main Vinegar Hill camp for the looming battle and Perry withdrew as ordered.
The subsequent defeat on 21 June eliminated rebel control of territory in Wexford but left at least 10,000 armed men willing to fight on. Perry managed to withdraw a force of some thousands to the south towards Wexford town and with other leaders such as Garret Byrne, Edward Fitzgerald and Esmonde Kyan fought their way through Wexford reaching Kilcavan Hill again by 28 June and defeated a pursuing cavalry force at Ballyraheen Hill on 2 July.
Perry and the surviving column then left Wexford and reached the Wicklow hills on 5 July, having fought off a pursuit led by General James Duff (who ordered the Gibbet Rath executions) at the battle of White Heaps/Ballygullen. Some rebels took to the hills to fight on in a protracted guerrilla war; some returned to their homes; but the bulk set off on a march into the midlands to revive the rebellion under the effective leadership of Perry and Fr. Mogue Kearns.
Crossing into Kildare on 9 July, the rebels captured a keg of gunpowder near Newbridge and linked up with remnants of the Kildare rebels under William Aylmer. Following consultation with their Kildare comrades, it was then decided to swing northwards and attack Clonard in County Meath, partly because they believed stores of arms were located there, but also to elude the thousands of soldiers combing Kildare for rebels.
The attack on Clonard was a disastrous failure and a severe blow to the surviving rebels. Many Kildare rebels returned to their homes, Meath men were discouraged from joining by the defeat and much of their existing stocks of ammunition were wasted in the futile attack.[ citation needed ]
A desperate decision was taken to hook up with the rebels in Ulster and the surviving column of no more than 1,000 men was constantly harried by pursuing Government troops until forced to stand and fight on 14 July at Knightstown Bog some miles north of the River Boyne in Co Meath, where they were scattered and defeated. [6] Some rebel units managed to reform and the decision was made to head back to Wexford but the surviving column was intercepted and met final defeat on the evening of the same day at Ballyboghill (County Dublin). Perry probably lost contact with the main rebel force before the final battle and fled towards the west in the company of Fr. Mogue Kearns and others. [1] They reached Edenderry in County Offaly before being captured by the local yeomanry and were both summarily hanged on 21 July. [7] He and Kearns were buried together in the cemetery of Monasteries [ clarification needed ] where a large Celtic cross now marks their grave.
The N11 road is a national primary road in Ireland, running for 129 km (80 mi) along the east side of Ireland from Dublin to Wexford. It passes close to Bray, Greystones, Wicklow, Arklow, Gorey, and Enniscorthy. Beyond Wexford, the route continues to Rosslare as the N25. The road forms part of European route E01. As of July 2019 the N11/M11 is of dual carriageway or motorway standard from Dublin as far as Oilgate in County Wexford.
Enniscorthy is the second-largest town in County Wexford, Ireland. The town is located on the picturesque River Slaney and in close proximity to the Blackstairs Mountains and Ireland's longest beach, Curracloe.
The Battle of Vinegar Hill was a military engagement during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 on 21 June 1798 between a force of approximately 13,000 government troops under the command of Gerard Lake and 16,000 United Irishmen rebels led by Anthony Perry. The battle, a major rebel defeat, took place on 21 June 1798 on a large rebel camp on Vinegar Hill and in the streets of Enniscorthy, County Wexford and marked the last major attempt by the rebels to hold and control territory taken in Wexford.
The Battle of Oulart Hill took place on 27 May 1798 when a rebel gathering of between 4,000 and 5,000 annihilated a detachment of 110 militia sent from Wexford town to stamp out the spreading rebellion in County Wexford.
The Carnew executions refer to the summary execution of 28 prisoners being held as suspected United Irishmen by yeomanry troops from the Carnew garrison stationed in the barracks of Carnew Castle, County Wicklow, Ireland on 25 May 1798.
A regional road in the Republic of Ireland is a class of road not forming a major route, but nevertheless forming a link in the national route network. There are over 11,600 kilometres of regional roads. Regional roads are numbered with three-digit route numbers, prefixed by "R". The equivalent road category in Northern Ireland are B roads.
The Battle of Ballyellis on 30 June 1798 was a clash during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, between a surviving column of the dispersed Wexford rebel army and pursuing British forces which resulted in a victory for the rebels.
The second Battle of Arklow took place during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 on 9 June when a force of United Irishmen from Wexford, estimated at 10,000 strong, launched an assault into County Wicklow, on the British-held town of Arklow, in an attempt to spread the rebellion into Wicklow and to threaten the capital of Dublin.
The Battle of Tubberneering took place during the Wexford Rebellion fought on 4 June 1798 between Crown forces and United Irish insurgents, at Tubberneering south of Gorey in the north of County Wexford. The rebels ambushed and routed the British.
The battle of Ovidstown was a military engagement between British Crown forces and United Irishmen rebels during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 near the town of Kilcock, County Kildare. Despite the initial failures experienced by the United Irishmen in County Kildare during the first months of the rebellion, the consolidation of government forces in the town of Naas and the priority given by the Dublin Castle administration to suppress the Wexford Rebellion in County Wexford meant that much of the county remained in rebel hands since the outbreak of the rebellion. Towns such as Prosperous and Clane were in rebel hands, while towns such as Maynooth, Kilcock and Kildare had been attacked and briefly occupied by the rebels. By 19 June, however, neighbouring County Meath had been judged sufficiently pacified to allow for government forces to be dispatched from that county into Kildare to recapture rebel-held territory.
Joseph Holt was a United Irish general and leader of a large guerrilla force which fought against British troops in County Wicklow from June–October 1798. He was exiled in 1799 to the colony of New South Wales where he worked as a farm manager for NSW Corp Paymaster Captain William Cox and later returned to Ireland in 1814.
John Murphy was an Irish Roman Catholic priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns, who is mainly remembered for his central role in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in County Wexford, which is sometimes known as the Wexford Rebellion. He led the rebels to one of their initial victories over a government militia at Oulart Hill, and in the following weeks became one of the rebellion's main leaders.
Events from the year 1798 in Ireland.
Carnew is a village in County Wicklow, Ireland. It is the most southerly town in Wicklow situated just a mile from the border with County Wexford. For historical reasons it has often been described as "a Protestant enclave".
Father Mogue Kearns, sometimes called Moses Kearns, was an Irish Roman Catholic priest and United Irishman executed by the British on 12 July 1798, after leading 2,000 rebel troops in Wexford.
The Wexford Rebellion refers to the events of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in County Wexford. From 27 May until 21 June 1798, Society of United Irishmen rebels revolted against British rule in the county, engaging in multiple confrontations with Crown forces. The most successful and destructive rising in all the counties of Ireland, United Irishmen rebels experienced a number of early successes in the county despite being seen as a relatively loyal county by the Dublin Castle administration due to a series of military victories. However, the tide soon turned against the United Irishmen in Wexford as Crown forces poured into the region, engaging in a brutal counterinsurgency which indiscriminately targeted suspected rebels and eventually suppressed all rebel activities in the county.
County Wexford is a county located in the south-east of Ireland, in the province of Leinster. It takes its name from the principal town, Wexford, named 'Waesfjord' by the Vikings – meaning 'inlet (fjord) of the mud-flats' in the Old Norse language. In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Uí Cheinnselaig, with its capital at Ferns.
The Battle of Enniscorthy was a land battle fought during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, on 28 May 1798, when an overwhelming force of rebels assailed the town of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, which was defended only by a 300-strong garrison supported by loyalist civilians. On the previous day at nearby Oulart, several thousand rebels led by Fr John Murphy had massacred a detachment of the North Cork militia, amounting to 110 officers and men.
The Battle of Kilthomas took place on 27 May 1798 when combined Loyalist Forces defeated a gathering of several thousand rebels in the greater Ferns/Carnew area, in one of the primary actions of the rebellion in County Wexford. This occurred at the same time as the Battle of Oulart Hill in the east of the county.
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