Sir, - A grievous aspect of some recent correspondence, including J. P. Brennan (February 24th), has been to lend contagion to the perception that in the United Irish insurrection of 1798, particularly in the south-east, Protestants were killed because they were Protestants and Catholics were killed because they were Catholics. When considering the amount of scholarly research and publications of the last ten years on the period, one is tempted to despair of its effectiveness.
Mr Brennan shows a familiarity with the works of Sir Richard Musgrave (1802) and Thomas Packenham (1972). It dismays me that he is not at once familiar with the definitive work on that debacle in Scullabogue on the day of the Battle of New Ross by Dr. Daniel Gahan, in the autumn 1996 issue of that superb periodical History Ireland - available in all book and magazine outlets.
Scullabogue was only one of the detention points where the United Irish army gathered people suspected of being actively loyal to the Crown, on the march to the south-west. Its awful story has been brilliantly developed as a propaganda gift for two centuries. The burning of hospitals filled with insurgent wounded by Crown forces in Ross, Enniscorthy and Wexford has not received similar publicity.
The wounded in Ross Hospital served under a Protestant United Irish commander, freely elected, Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey. They were not burned because they were Protestant or Catholic. They were put to death because they were armed enemies of the Crown, in alliance with the French who were at war with England in a European and North Atlantic struggle, the stakes in which were of major international dimensions. - Yours, etc.,
Drinagh Lodge, Wexford.