Above : Portrait Of General Lake

The insurgents now concentrated their forces in the camps on Vinegar Hill and at Three Rocks, near Wexford. On June 21st General Lake attacked the former position. His forces amounted to about 15,000. The insurgents were certainly considerably more numerous, though the exact figures are impossible to ascertain. They were, at least, as badly armed as they had been in previous encounters, and had only a few small cannon, whereas Lake was provided with excellent artillery.

The ammunition of the insurgents soon gave out, and they were obliged to rely solely on the pike, or on the scythes and other improvised weapons. Still, they resisted stoutly for about an hour and a half, before they broke and fled. General Lake had intended to completely surround the hill and, had his directions been obeyed, it is probable that few of the insurgents would have escaped alive, for the order had been g.ven to show no mercy. Needham, one of the subordinates, had, however, left a point, still locally known as ” Needham’s Gap,” unguarded Edward Roche, had endeavoured to keep order, but on June 20th a ruffian named Dixon collected some hundred pikemen from the country round, took possession of the gaol, and induced his half-intoxicated followers to drag the prisoners in batches to the bridge, and there shoot or pike them. Probably nearly a hundred had perished before a courageous priest, Father Currin, assisted by Edward Roche, succeeded in stopping the massacre.

Below : Portrait Of Thomas Addis Emmet

Keough was aware that three English armies were advancing on Wexford, and, judging the situation desperate, he released Lord Kingsborough, the most important of the prisoners, begging him to obtain such terms as might be possible for the insurgents themselves, and the preservation of the town and its inhabitants from the brutality of the soldiers. Lord Kingsborough appears to have done what he could, but General Lake declared that he would ” enter into no negotiations, and consider no terms.” Nothing was finally decided, but on June 22nd some yeomen and a detachment of regulars marched in and quietly took possession of the town.

The camp at Three Rocks, whither the main body of the Wexford insurgents had betaken themselves previous to the surrender of the town, now broke up, the leader, Father Philip Roche, having been captured and hanged.

Although isolated bodies of insurgents still held out, and resistance only ceased gradually, yet the insurrection might be regarded as over. Most of the surviving leaders fell into the hands of the Government, and almost all who did so perished on the scaffold. Father John Murphy, Keough, Bagenal Harvey, and great numbers of others suffered death ; on Wexford Bridge alone sixty-five were hanged. Of the rank and file of the insurgents who were executed, and of the number of persons, some of whom had had no part in the insurrection, who were butchered by the soldiers, no estimate can be formed.

Towards the leaders of the United Irishmen who had been arrested before the outbreak of the rebellion greater lenity was shown. Some, as the two Sheares, Father Quigley and one or two others, were executed, but the lives of some of the most prominent, as Thomas Addis Emmet, McNevin and Arthur O’Connor were spared. These, after undergoing a long imprisonment, finished their lives in exile.