Intelligence reports compiled during the 1798 Rebellion have been uncovered by a student in England while working on an MA thesis. The find was uncovered in a private library in Exeter, Devon, when the student was looking up land records.
The find includes a large number of reports by the assistant sheriff in Carlow at the time of the rebellion.
The find gives the names of many of the victims who died in the Potato Market massacre in the centre of Carlow town on May 25th, 1798. There are also lists of the people who were executed at Carlow jail in the months following the failed rebellion.
Mr Michael Purcell of the Carlow County Heritage Society will travel to Exeter this week to examine the collection. "This is the entire surveillance work of the assistant sheriff and his team of spies who operated in and around Carlow during the run up to the 1798 Rebellion," he said.
"One reason we could not get detailed knowledge of that period is due to the fact that all the records of that period were inexplicably missing. Now we know where they actually went."