Captain Dwyer

DESCRIPTION: Ireland is ending the slavery binding it "Since Cromwell and his damned decree." Captain Dwyer's exploits against the cavalry and Captain Byrne are recounted: skirmishes at Hackettstown and Keadun bog avenging Stratford, Baltinglass and Dunlavin.
AUTHOR: R. R. Madden (source: Moylan-TheAgeOfRevolution-1776-1815)
EARLIEST DATE: 1887 (Madden's _Literary Remains of the United Irishmen of 1798_, according to Moylan-TheAgeOfRevolution-1776-1815)
KEYWORDS: army battle rebellion Ireland patriotic
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1798 - Irish rebellion against British rule
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Moylan-TheAgeOfRevolution-1776-1815 144, "Captain Dwyer" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Michael Dwyer (I)" (subject of Michael Dwyer) and references there
NOTES [190 words]: The Oliver Cromwell reference is to the August 1652 Act of Settlement of Ireland and its consequent expropriation of Irish lands. [For background on Cromwell's subjection of Ireland, and the horrors it caused -- it was perhaps the worst atrocity committed by anyone from the time of the Roman Empire until the Twentieth Century, attempting to push all the native Irish into Connaught -- see the notes to "The Wexford Massacre." - RBW]
Hackettstown, Stratford-on-Slaney, Baltinglass and Dunlavin are in County Wicklow.
Moylan-TheAgeOfRevolution-1776-1815: "Michael Dwyer was a Wicklow man, a member of the United Irishmen, who fought during the 1798 rebellion, and who waged a guerilla war in the Wicklow mountains for several years afterwards." This song, unlike the others, deals with his activities in May and June of 1798. "The village of Stratford-on-Slaney was attacked on the 24th of May. Hackettstown was attacked the following day, and again one month later on the 25th of June." Dwyer's was appointed Captain commanding a company on June 24.- BS
For more on Dwyer, see the notes to "Michael Dwyer (I)" or "Michael Dwyer (II)." - RBW
File: Moyl144

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