Above : John Dillon, Fled To America

There was an attempt to rise in Munster. The trials of O’Brien and Meagher had ended in a disagreement of the jury and the discharge of the two prisoners who were therefore free to develop their plans. A new paper, The Felon, of even more revolutionary tendency than The United Irishman appeared. The suppression of this was the first of the final blows struck by Government against the organisation. It was followed up in July by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and a proclamation ordering the arrest of the principal leaders.

Of the men named some concealed themselves, but the bolder spirits resolved to risk everything on the chance of an immediate insurrection in Munster. This province, being permeated by the political clubs on which the Confederation chiefly relied, was regarded as most suitable for the opening scenes of the hoped-for resolution. O’Brien and John Blake Dillon were to start the movement in the Bouthern counties, but they everywhere met with discouragement. Nothing was prepared in the local centres. Leaders, supplies, and an adequate stock of weapons were alike wanting. The clergy in every parish warned the people not to court destruction for themselves and ruin for their families by engaging in an enterprise, the utter hopelessness of which was too evident to need demonstration.

Under these circumstances, the fact that O’Brien and Dillon succeeded in enlisting no more than a few hundred almost unarmed peasants is less surprising than that they secured any followers at all. The little troop reached Ballingarry (Co. Tipperary) and attacked a small body of police, who had taken possession of a farmhouse, which they barricaded, and whence they fired on their assailants, of whom two were killed and several wounded. As O’Brien, from motives of humanity, refused to allow the building to be set on fire, the peasants renounced the enterprise and dispersed. The insurrection so long prepared was ever in a few hours. The consequences were to follow.

A few days after the Ballingarry affray, O’Brien was arrested in Thurles, but Dillon succeeded in making his escape to America.
Through the succeeding months a dreary series of state-trials dragged on. O’Brien, Meagher and two others were arraigned for High Treason» the rest on the lesser charge of tr«ason-felony. The four former sonvicted, and rtceived th« capital sentence.
Of these arraigned under the Treason-Felony Act, the greater umber were convicted and sentenced to various terms of transportation. In the case of Gavan Duffy, the charge was altered to one of High Treason. His trial, however, proved abortive. He was tried no less than three times, but always with the same result. Finally, owing in a great measure to the public feeling raised by the persistent efforts of the Crown to secure by any means a conviction, he was released.