Letter, James Hamilton Jnr, Strabane, Co. Tyrone, to Marquess of Abercorn, General Post Office, Dublin. (To be forwarded).

Letter, James Hamilton Jnr, Strabane, Co. Tyrone, to Marquess of Abercorn, General Post Office, Dublin. (To be forwarded).

Lough Derg--Northern Ireland--Catalogue--Letters

A report including details of a gathering of pilgrims at Lough Derg with 20,000 attendees.

James Hamilton Jnr, Strabane, Co. Tyrone

Letter in Public Record Office of Northern Ireland

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland

13 June 1798

PRONI eCatalogue

Open access on catalogue

Transcribed letter

English

Catalogue transcript

DD_0455

54.6083, -7.8714

D623/A/90/22

"My Lord, I will not loose a moment in having your Lordship's camp equipage forwarded as you desire to Dublin, with directions in case your Lordship shall have left Dublin, that it shall follow. All private accounts here today from Coleraine and that neighbourhood agree in giving still more favourable accounts that the papers give. At the most convenient parts, to the different avenues to this town, there is an officers piquet guard mounted; this precaution was absolutely necessary, as from information that to my knowledge Col Kearney received and which cou'd not be doubted, large bodies have been seen in the night collected at the foot of Menashesk (the mountain planted by the late Lord) and to all appearance armed, and ready to march down and surprise the town. The like information was had, of a thousand being seen in a large flatt in Magherycoltan (close by Taggart's bleach-green) last Saturday night. If there is not a landing effected by the French, I have not the smallest apprehensions, although I am fully persuaded the Catholics on the slightest hopes of success would rise in a mass, and be still more desperate and cruel than in the South. I suppose there may be at this moment 20,000 of them at Lough-Derg about 16 miles from Baron's-Court, doing penance there. I dare say that Government will have proper spies amongst them. The priests (at least all I know) have been particular in giving the most loyal advices to their flocks that cou'd be wished, in public, but it would be a very easy matter if they were inclined to give them a private admonition of a [ ] contrary tendency. I was all [ ] day through the Donegal estate, and I have good reason to expect that they will come in shortly with their rents; they are all in a panic for fear of the Catholics of Glensooley pouring down upon them in the night; the enclosed was put yesterday into my hands when I was distrib[ut]ing notices such as I enclose, and it would have had 500 names in half an hour if I cou'd have waited for it. The crops are most promising, the weather charming and we want but peace at home and abroad to be as wealthy and comfortable people with (few exceptions) as any landlord in Ireland cou'd boast of...".

Letter collection