"The majority of the men in the Scottish Highland regiments who were sent to Ireland in 1798 were Gaelic-speaking. It is said that many of them first learnt English while they were in Ireland and when they spoke it afterwards it was with an Irish accent." That's according to Alan Carswell of the United Services Museum at Edinburgh Castle, who supplied the Ulster Museum, Belfast with rare items belonging to those Highland regiments for its 1798 exhibition, Up in Arms. It closes on August 31st, and is well worth seeing.
Among those Gaelic-speaking Scottish regiments were the Glengarry Fencibles, who landed at Ballyhack, Co Wexford, in the third week of June, 1798. They were unique in that they were almost entirely Catholic and had with them their Catholic chaplain, Rev Alexander Macdonnell, the first to hold such a post since the Reformation. He was later to become the first Catholic bishop of Upper Canada.
Macdonnell was a remarkable man in many ways. Like the majority of the Catholic bishops of the period, he was a loyalist, and he was largely responsible for the raising of the Glengarry Fencibles in 1794. Fencible regiments were not expected to serve outside their own district, or at most in their own country, but "by the persuasion of their chaplain offered to extend their services to any part of Great Britain or Ireland." This offer was gratefully accepted by the government, and the regiment eventually found itself engaged in the task of putting down rebellion in Ireland.
Much of our information about the Glengarry Fencibles comes from the writings of their chaplain. Reports on their activities appeared in the Glasgow and Edinburgh newspapers and it is obvious that they were written by Macdonnell himself. He was a determined individual who knew what he wanted and he was fully aware of the value of publicity in furthering his hopes and plans for his people.
Macdonnell accompanied the regiment everywhere, dressed not, as custom would have it, in the black of the chaplain, but in the regimental plaid of his clan. In a letter to his cousin, Margaret Fraser, in October 1798, he gave his impression of the cruelty inflicted on the unfortunate people of Wexford:
"The rebellion is now entirely at an end, but a set of bloody Orangemen still exercise their wanton cruelties upon the defenceless inhabitants if allowed and would force these unfortunate people to the mountains . . . but for the protection of the British troops and for the earnest remonstrances of the Catholic clergy who have certainly contributed in a great measure to tranquilise the country, notwithstanding how much their conduct has been misrepresented by the Orange party."
In a later letter to his cousin, Macdonnell qualified his judgement of the British soldiers: "The barbarous conduct of the soldiery in general .. . exceeds belief. There is no species of cruelty but they exercised on their unhappy victims of their fury, neither age nor sex was respected, and there are instances of the heads of the husbands being cut off in defending the virtue of their wives and the arms of the mothers round the bodies of their daughters. I must, however, observe that the British troops in general behave extremely well, more especially the Scots Fencibles, some few individuals excepted."
Macdonnell might be accused of being somewhat biased regarding the Scots, but the Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-Chief, Lord Cornwallis, a just and fair man, commended them for their "orderly behaviour", observing on the other hand that "the English Fencibles ... are in general bad trash."
The Canadian historian Kathleen Toomey says that Cornwallis's recommendations of regiments such as the Glengarrys "was due in no small measure to the influence of their chaplain who was instrumental in winning over the brutalised citizenry. Often they found Roman Catholic chapels had been turned into stables by the yeomanry. These he had restored and then invited the native population to attend services over which he presided."
The Irish writer Bernard Kelly described his effect on the people as "almost magical", especially as they learned that the regiment was composed of Roman Catholics who spoke their language and whose chaplain readily ministered to their needs.
While the regiment saw action at New Ross, Lacken Hill, Hacketstown and Kilkenny, the only episode of any permanent interest is that of their attempted capture of the celebrated Michael Dwyer, one of the last of that band of '98 men who defied all efforts at seizure. On a cold snowy night on February 15th, 1799, Dwyer and 17 of his men were sheltering in a cluster of houses in the townland of Derrynamuck, near the south-eastern corner of the Glen of Imaal. A spy had given away their hiding place, and when the Glengarry Fencibles, who were stationed at Hacketstown, Co Carlow, got the word, they immediately set out for the mountains.
They arrested the men in two of the houses, and when they came to the Miley Connell's house where Dwyer and three other men were sleeping, they called on them to surrender. Dwyer asked that the family be let out, and when this was done he and his men fired on the Glengarrys, killing two of them. Fire was returned and eventually the officer in charge ordered his men to set fire to the thatched house.
Inside, the men were choking from the smoke, and when one of Dwyer's men, Sam McAllister, a deserter from the Antrim Militia, was wounded in the arm, he told Dwyer to be prepared to run for it. He held his blunderbuss at the ready, told Dwyer to go on all fours, and to open the door. When McAllister stepped outside he received the fire of the military, which killed him instantly. Dwyer took to his heels and a kilted Highlander flew after him. The soldiers did not fire for fear of hitting their comrade, and Dwyer made his escape in the dark.
The Glenagarrys were dubbed "The Devil's Bloodhounds" by the Wicklow people because of their tenacity in searching out rebels in the mountains. Following the episode at Derrynamuck, a song was composed which contained these lines:
"But the kilted foes around them set
And fired the house of Connell,
Those hungry Scots, the hounds of death,
Ah, shame on you Macdonnell!
Spirits of the dead, the butchered of Glencoe,
Look down with vengeful ire
On you, degenerate sons, the murdering crew
That sought the life of Dwyer,
Of the freedom-loving Dwyer."
Rev Alexander Macdonnell, chaplain of the Glengarrys