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It was on the evening of the fourth of June, that
a messenger arrived from Belfast, at O'Halloran
Castle. He delivered to its owner the following
note, and passed on to circulate others of a similar
import throughout the country.

“Belfast, June 4th, 1798.

“The signal is given. The mail coach has not
arrived. Our informant says it was stopped yesterday
at Swords. The south is in arms—Wexford is
taken. Let the rising be on the 7th inst. The general
rendezvous for this county is Donegore hill.
The small parties of the military quartered in the
country towns must be captured, if possible, by
surprise. The bearer will proceed with intelligence
along the coast. You will despatch messengers
through the interior, by Ballynure, Ballyclare,

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Ballyeaston, Ballymena, &c. Expedition is requisite.

O'Halloran immediately assembled his coadjutors,
and couriers were soon despatched agreeably
to the foregoing instructions.

All was now preparation, bustle, and eagerness,
among the populace of Larne; but every one was
unusually sober, and good humoured. Not a drunken
man was to be seen, nor even a woman heard to
scold, during this awful period of secrecy, suspense,
and anxious activity. Even the military were
treated with more than usual complaisance, and all
men were not only quiet, but apparently contented
and happy. Thus in a profound calm were the
populace of this district employed in collecting all
the elements of irritation, hatred, and ferocity, which
were soon to burst into the most dreadful storm of
destruction that ever swept that unhappy country.

The sixth of June, the eve of the insurrection,
came. Mirth seemed to engage the young; friendship,
good humour, and hilarity, the middle aged;
while the old looked on in portentous silence and
meditation. All business, every species of labour,
spontaneously ceased after mid-day. The merchant,
indeed, still kept his shop open, but it was
only to lean over his counter; for he neither desired,
nor obtained customers. The mechanic also
kept his work-shop open, but in it there was no
sound of hammer, nor saw, nor axe, nor shuttle to
be heard. Spades, mattocks, and hoes were thrown
aside, or disappeared as if they had in reality
been converted into swords and spears.

Towards the evening, an increased degree of
mirth and jollity pervaded the younger part of
the community; while even the more sedate and
advanced in life, relaxed, or, growing weary of

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their thoughtfulness or their idleness, joined in athletic
sports, such as wrestling, running, leaping,
hurling, and various other kinds of rural pastimes.

Such an unsual degree of mirth and idleness
among the people, excited the attention of the
friends of government, and a vague whisper of
some disturbance being intended during the night,
reached the ears of the commander of the small
party of military then quartered in Larne.

This party consisted of about fifty of the Tay
fencibles. Their captain's name was Small. In
consequence of the rumour which had reached
him, he thought proper strictly to enforce the general
orders which had been several months before
issued to the military dispersed over the country,
to cause all persons in the disaffected towns
and villages to keep within doors after 9 o'clock
at night; but the execution of which, from the continued
appearance of tranquillity in his neighbourhood,
had been lately induced to relax.

He therefore as soon as tattoo was beat, which
for many months had been regularly done at 9 o'clock at night, paraded the streets with a patrole
of twenty men, and compelled the people to relinquish
their sports, and retire to their respective
homes, under pain of being taken to the guard
house. Men, women and children, all complied,
and the streets, which a few minutes before displayed
such a full scene of life, resounding with all the
noise of rural mirth and manners, were now totally
deserted, and as silent as the habitations of the
dead. The soldiers had retired to their barrack, and
a deep portentous calm continued for several hours.

During this interval, a number of the most intrepid
and zealous of the United Irishmen, stole
cautiously to their appointed rendezvous, at a place
called the Green Holme, about a half a mile from
the town. It was a solitary spot, at the foot of a

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high hill, a short distance from the public road,
from which it was screened by two intervening
thick hedges, and was selected for their meeting,
not more on account of its privacy and contiguity
to the town, than on account of a cold, clear
and beautiful spring of water it contained. Here
O'Halloran and M`Cauley arranged the plan of
an attack upon the barrack, the other leaders having
gone off to head the insurrection in different
parts of the country.

It was about one o'clock in the morning, and
every thing was quiet in the town, when O'Halloran,
after having distributed among his little band,
whiskey, and other refreshments, gave orders for
proceeding to the attack.

They were about eighty in number; about thirty
of whom were armed with muskets, and the remainder
with pikes. Their plan was two-fold.—
If the soldiers were retired to sleep, which they
presumed would be the case, but which they
could easily ascertain by the show of resistance
that would be made on their first appearance in the
street that contained the barrack, they should proceed
at once to the assault. But if their adversaries
should be on the alert, they were to retreat
so as to attract them in pursuit, while M`Cauley
should hasten with a body of twenty men, twelve
of whom had muskets, to form an ambuscade behind
the wall of a rope factory, which joined one
of the streets, and to which O'Halloran at the head
of the main body, should direct his retreat, in order
to bring his pursuers between two fires.

The barrack was situated near the centre of a
long street, on arriving at the upper end of which,
the insurgents perceived that they must relinquish
their first plan, as the garrison were evidently on
the watch.

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Captain Small, who was a vigilant and active
officer, had kept above a third of his troops under
arms, for fear of a surprise, and had ordered the rest
to sleep in their clothes, that they might be ready
for action at a moment's warning.

M`Cauley was now despatched to lay his ambush,
and Darragh was ordered to pass through a
by street, at the head of twenty men, to possess
himself of the barrack, in case Small should leave
it with his whole force in pursuit of O'Halloran.

Having made these arrangements, and given the
detachments time to execute them, which as it was
considerably dark, and as they kept very silent,
they accomplished without alarming their enemies,
O'Halloran ordered his men to advance a few paces
into the street containing the barrack, and,
after discharging several muskets at the garrison,
to retire immediately to the shelter of that adjoining.

They fired. In a moment the royal drums
beat “to arms,” and the troops to the number of
forty—the remainder, in conjunction with some
loyalists who had joined them on the preceding
evening, being left to guard the barrack—formed
in two lines, and, each taking one side of the street,
marched at a quick pace towards the insurgents.
But before their approach, O'Halloran had eluded
their attack by removing to another street, at the
end of which he stopped for a moment, to fire on
the advancing troops, by which several of them
were wounded. He then continued his retreat into
the Rope-walk street, where M`Cauley lay concealed,
and halting at the upper end of it, awaited
the approach of his pursuers, who steadily advanced
until they were within three hundred yards
of him.

Not a shot having been as yet fired in this street
by either party, Small stopped, and exclaimed,

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“front division, ready! Now my lads, fire sure,
and cut down the rebels!”—immediately a volley
of musketry from behind, brought six of his own
men to the ground. He turned round, but no enemy
was visible. His van had fired at O'Halloran's
party, two of whom were killed and several
wounded. They immediately returned the fire,
and two more of the soldiers pressed the ground.

Small now gave orders for a retreat, when
O'Halloran's pikemen rushed down upon him.
But he checked them by his front presenting bayonets,
and his rear division advancing and firing
amongst them, and they were obliged, in their turn,
to withdraw and seek shelter at their former stand.
He had just ordered his opponents to be pursued,
when another volley from his invisible assailants,
brought down four more of his men.

A retreat, at all hazards, was now necessary to
save the remainder of his troops. It was, therefore,
again attempted; but on coming opposite the
rope-walk gate, M`Cauley, with the view of capturing
Small, rushed with his little band of pikemen
upon him; but they were too weak to make
any impression, and a front of bayonets being instantly
presented to them, they were compelled
again to seek refuge behind their wall, though not until
M`Cauley, with his own hands, had given Small
a dreadful wound in the groin with a pike. As
O'Halloran's men appeared coming to the aid of
their companions, the troops did not think proper
to pursue M`Cauley, but hastily passed on in their
retreat to the end of the street, where they only
halted to reload. They then continued their retreat,
practising for their safety the same expedient
that the insurgents had practised in drawing
them into the ambush.

On coming opposite a lane through which Darragh's
small party were retiring, after having made

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an unsuccessful attempt on the barrack, they were
fired on by this party, and two of their number
killed. They returned the fire, but it did no execution;
for Darragh's men, immediately on discharging
their pieces, had taken refuge behind a
low garden wall which formed one side of the lane.

After this their progress to the barrack was unmolested.
On arriving there, Captain Small found
that he had left seventeen of his men in the hands
of the Insurgents, and of those he had brought
back, five, besides himself, were severely, and four
slightly wounded.

Thus one half of the soldiers who had gone out
on this skirmish, were now unfit for duty. During
the affair, only two of the insurgents were killed,
and about seven or eight wounded.—So that, although
they had failed in their object of reducing
the barrack, they had obtained a considerable
advantage; they had weakened and disheartened
their enemies.

Darragh's attempt on the barrack, had failed
from the weakness of his party. He had, indeed,
been directed to make no attempt, unless the whole
strength of the troops should be drawn out in pursuit
of O'Halloran. But, as from the number
which appeared to be drawn out, he concluded
that very few, indeed, could be left, he was induced
to hazard an effort. Accordingly, he advanced
boldly with his followers into the middle
of the street, when he was assailed with such a
firing as, although his men escaped uninjured, convinced
him of his inability to succeed. He, therefore,
withdrew, and was on his way by a circuitous
route to join O'Halloran, when he encountered
the retreating troops as before-mentioned, and
added to their misfortunes.

The inhabitants of the town, by this time, were
flying in every direction, as their wishes or their

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fears prompted them, either to join that party to
which they adhered, or to seek refuge in the country
from that fate, to which many of them believed,
that all who remained in the town would be doomed.
During the skirmish they had, in terrible suspense,
awaited the issue; those, especially of the
popular party, who had relatives engaged in the
affair, endured a dreadful agony of mind, not knowing
but that every shot they heard was the deathknell
of a husband, a brother, a son, or some other
dear relative or friend. The shouts of the combatants,
as either side gained the advantage—the
groans of the wounded and the dying—the shrieks
of the alarmed women and children, who, even
from within their houses, louldly proclaimed their
fears, formed a scene terribly painful to the imaginations
of all, but such, if there be such monsters,
as delight in human misery.

Notwithstanding his success, O'Halloran did not
think it prudent, immediately, to renew the attack on
the garrison. His strength was every minute increasing,
and he expected in a few hours, to be able
to overwhelm all opposition. The distance to Donegore
hill, the appointed rendezvous for the county,
where the great stand was to be made, and where
it was his duty to be with his followers, at four
o'clock that afternoon, was only about fourteen
miles. He had, consequently, sufficient time to
wait for such an accession of strength, before he
renewed his attack on the troops, as would render
resistance hopeless, and, perhaps, lead to a surrender
of the place without bloodshed.

To these suggestions he yielded as much from
humanity as policy. In the meantime, he was not
inactive. Small parties were despatched in every
direction to arouse their friends, and intimidate
even their enemies, to come to their assistance.
Multitudes came voluntarily; but it must be

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confessed, that numbers whose fears or principles rendered
them reluctant, were compelled to take the
field with the pike at their breasts. These recruiting
and impressing parties, were ordered to be
again on the ground by eight o'clock, A. M. at
which time it was intended to make a grand assault
on the barrack.

In the meantime, every avenue to and from the
place was strictly guarded, so that none of the loyalists
in the country could join the garrison, nor
any of those in the town carry intelligence from
it. The garrison, however, notwithstanding their
disaster, had been joined by nearly a hundred of
the town's people who were attached to the government,
and many more would have flocked to their
aid, had they not been forced either to conceal
themselves, or to fall into the ranks of the Insurgents.

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