WILLIAM AND MART.

139

population assembled, seventy five fighting men, with abouta hundred women and children. They had among them sixty ■firelocks, and as many pikes and swords. Bound the agent’shouse they threw up with great speed a wall of turf fourteen feetin height and twelve in thickness. The space enclosed wasabout half an acre. AVithin this rampart all the arms, the am-munition and the provisions of the settlement were collected,and several huts of thin plank were built. When these pre-parations were completed, the men of Kenmare began to makevigorous reprisals on their Irish neighbours, seized robbers,recovered stolen property, and continued during some iveeks toact in all things as an independent commonwealth. The govern-ment was carried on by elective officers, to whom every memberof the society swore fidelity on the Holy Gospels.*

While the people of the small town of Kenmare were thusbestirring themselves, similar preparations for defence weremade by larger communities on a larger scale. Great numbersof gentlemen and yeomen quitted the open country, and re-paired to those towns which had been founded and incorpo-rated for the purpose of bridling the native population, andwhich, though recently placed under the government of KomanCatholic magistrates, were still inhabited chiefly by Protestants.A considerable body of armed colonists mustered at Sligo,another at Charleville, a third at Mallow, a fourth still moreformidable at Bandon.** But the principal strongholds of theEnglishry during this evil time were Enniskillen and London-derry.

Enniskillen, though the capital of the county of Fer-managh, was then merely a village. It was built on an islandsurrounded by the river which jQins the two beautiful sheets

* Exact Relation of the Persebutions, Robberies, and Losses, sustainedby the Protestants of Killmare in Ireland, 1G89; Smith’s Ancient andModern State of Kerry, 1756.

** Ireland’s Lamentation, licensed May 18. 1689.

CHAP.

XU .

1689 .

Ennis-

killen.