Lord Edward remained in France until March, 1798, when he returned to
Dublin, was betrayed by a man named Mangan, and a guard of soldiers was
sent to arrest him in 151 Thomas Street, just below the Bank of Ireland.
A tablet with an inscription now marks the house. There was a desperate
struggle, in which the captain of the guards was killed by Lord Edward,
and the latter received a bullet in the shoulder, from which he died in
prison a few days later at the age of thirty-two. As everybody knows,
the rebellion was a failure, and nearly all the other leaders were
captured and executed. Wolfe Tone was betrayed by an old school friend
and sentenced to be shot. He tried to kill himself in prison. The
wound, though fatal, was not immediately so, and he lay ill for several
months before death rescued him. Poor Pamela lived in poverty and
distress for several years before she was able to return to her friends
in France. "Frascati," her home, now belongs to a prosperous Dublin
tradesman.
A little farther down on the shore of the bay is a monument marking the
spot where the transport _Rochdale_, carrying the entire Ninety-seventh
Regiment of Foot, went ashore a hundred years ago, and the names of an
entire regiment, officers and men, were instantly erased from the
British army list. Since then an artificial harbor has been inclosed by
long breakwaters of masonry, giving a place of refuge for ships in
distress.
The tram line terminates in a pretty and picturesque village, called
Dalkey, which was a medieval stronghold and the scene of many fierce
fights, first between the earls of the Pale of Dublin and invading
Danes, and after that with the pirates who haunted this coast for a
century. It was a Danish settlement for several centuries, and afterward
the most important outpost of Dublin, defended by seven great castles,
three of which still remain in partial ruins. One of them is now
remodeled for use as a town hall. They are imposing piles of masonry,
and thick mats of ivy conceal the ancient wounds.
We took an "outside car" at the end of the tram line at Dalkey to drive
around the shore of the bay, which the driver assured us was the most
beautiful in the world and even surpassed the Bay of Naples, which it is
said to resemble, and for that reason many of the names are the same.
The resemblance might possibly be detected by a person with a vigorous
imagination. Killiney Bay, however, is a lovely sheet of water,
surrounded by high bluffs that are clad in June with glowing garments of
gorse and hawthorn. The first is a low bush which has a brilliant yellow
flower, and the hawthorn trees are as white as banks of snow. The land
is divided into meadows and pastures on the slopes by hedges of
hawthorn, and the turf is concealed by millions of buttercups as yellow
as gold. It is a rocky coast. Rugged crags that break out give a stern
expression to the picture, and sometimes rise a hundred feet or more in
frowning precipices of black granite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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