Arrest Of United Irishmen Leaders

The plans of the United Irishmen were well known to the Government, which had spies everywhere, even in the innermost circles of the society. Nevertheless, the leaders were for several months permitted to enjoy a fancied security, and to mature their schemes at home and abroad without interference. At length, in March 1798, the blow was struck. A number of the chief men were arrested at the house of Oliver Bond, one of their number, in Bridge Street, Dublin. Other arrests followed, and depfits of arms were raided. Lord Edward Fitzgerald succeeded in remaining concealed till May 17th, when he was seized in No. 153, Thomas Street, Dublin. He resisted desperately, mortally wounded one of his captors, and received himself a wound, of which he died some three weeks later. His private character was extremely amiable; his courage and disinterestedness above suspicion, and his devotion to what he considered to be a sacred cause singularly lofty and unselfish.

By this time few of those who really held in their hands the threads of the conspiracy had escaped arrest; and those few had fled from the country. The entire machinery had been put out of gear ; the arms had been seized. Nevertheless, the insurrection broke out, but in a form very different from what the leaders had intended. It took the shape of a number of local risings, practically unconnected one with another, and so foredoomed to failure. One, indeed, was formidable and lasted for some time ; it might well have been more formidable still, and lasted longer. By a strange chance it was precisely this rising, that in Wexford and Wicklow, which in origin and aim least approximated to the National Insurrection of which Tone, Fitzgerald, O’Connor and the rest had dreamed.