VINEGAR HILL’S FALLEN HEROES REMEMBERED ON LONGEST DAY
A remembrance ceremony was held on the longest day, June 21, to commemorate all who lost their lives in the Battle of Vinegar Hill in 1798.
Pikemen, women and children from Enniscorthy Re-enactment Society marched from St. Senan’s car park to Vinegar Hill led by piper Liam Doyle in remembrance of all those men, women and children who perished there on the same day 218 years ago.
MC for the event, Rory O’Connor of the 1798 Centre, addressed those present giving them a brief history of the Battle of Vinegar Hill when on June 21 in the Rebellion of 1798, Wexford rebels made their last stand against General Lake and his 15,000-strong, well trained and heavily armed Crown Forces.
Around 20,000 rebels, many of them women and children, were located on the hill when the bombardment began just before dawn. The government army formed a ring around the hill and after two hours of intense artillery bombardment they commenced an infantry assault killing approximately 1500, many of them civilians.
The battle, Rory said, ‘marked a turning point in the Rebellion insofar as it was the last attempt by the Rebels to hold and defend ground against the British military’.
Rory then called on Sean Og Doyle to read the very moving Seamus Heaney poem Requiem For The Croppies, followed by a lament by piper Liam Doyle and some words of peace and reconciliation from Fr. Odhran Furlong of St Aidan’s Cathedral and Rev. David Conkey of Enniscorthy Presbyterian Church.
Enniscorthy re-enactor Tim Corrigan then gave the gathering on the Hill that famous 1798 ballad The Croppy Boy.
Standing on Vinegar Hill on June 21 is moving in itself according to newly elected chairman of Enniscorthy Municipal District Council, Oliver Walsh, and he complimented all involved with the dignified and poignant ceremony, Rory O’Connor and staff of the 1798 Centre, Sean Og Doyle, piper Liam Doyle and Tim Corrigan and the Enniscorthy Historical Re-enactment Society saying that we should never forget the mammoth contribution made by these brave Wexford men and women. The 1798 Rebellion, he said, was the seed that blossomed into the 1916 Rising and Irish freedom.
As dusk descended on the iconic landmark, the strains of Amhran na bhFiann carried over the sacred burial ground and Pikemen and women made their way down the Hill marching shoulder to shoulder with the ghosts of the past.