414 ANNUAL llfiGISTER, I8l6. 



and having long witnessed the 

 unceasing but ineffectual exer- 

 tions on the part of many of the 

 magistrates in the most disturbed 

 parts of those counties, I deter- 

 mined to accede to their applica- 

 tion, and with the advice of the 

 Privy Council, subjected the con- 

 tiguous districts of the two coun- 

 ties to the opeiation of the insur- 

 rection act, by a proclamation, 

 which bears date the 24th of No- 

 vember. 



In the course of the present 

 year, the insurrection act has not 

 been enforced in any new instance. 

 In tlie month of March, in conse- 

 quence of a memorial from 27 

 magistrates of the county of 

 Louth, a special magistrate, Avith 

 50 constables, was appointed, for 

 the purpose of assisting them to 

 maintain the peace in four baro- 

 nies (*) of that county. 



Various acts of outrage were 

 committed in these baronies about 

 this period. In the course of one 

 week 1 1 houses in the neighbour- 

 hood of Dundalk were plundered 

 of arms. The house and offices 

 of a farmer, who had prosecuted 

 some persons by whom he had 

 Vjecn I'obbed and nearly murder- 

 ed, were wilfully set on fire and 

 consumed A party of armed 

 persons, reported to be not less 

 than 2(10 in number, attacked the 

 house of another individual, and 

 entered it, after meeting with 

 considerable resistance ; after 

 wounding very severely the owner 

 and two other inhabitants of the 

 house, they compelled him to de- 

 liver his arms, and to take an 



oath that he would give up his 

 farm. 



In the month of April in the 

 present year, a similar police es- 

 tablishment was also appointed in 

 three baronies (f ) of the county 

 of Clare, on a representation re- 

 ceived from 20 magistrates of that 

 county. For a considerable time 

 past, certain districts in that 

 county had been in an unsettled 

 state ; but in the course of the 

 preceding year 1 had been inform- 

 ed by the magistrates, that the 

 examples made under the insur- 

 rection act in the counties of Tip- 

 peraiy and Limeiick, had produced 

 a very beneficial effect in the 

 county of Clare. In the months, 

 however, of February and March 

 of the present year, offences of the 

 same jgeneral character with those 

 which I have before described 

 were very frequently committed. 

 Nightly meetings of large num- 

 bers of the lower orders took 

 place : in one district, in the 

 course of the month of March, 

 several houses were wilfully burn- 

 ed, and threatening notices were 

 posted up, directed against the 

 letting of lands to others than the 

 old proprietors, and against the 

 payment of rents, except under 

 certain piescribed regulations. 



I have enumerated all the se- 

 veral instances in which 1 have, 

 with the advice of the Piivy 

 Council, enforced the provisions 

 of either of those acts of the Le- 

 gislature which passed in the ses- 

 sion of 1814. It will appear, 

 from the detail into which I have 

 entered, that the insurrection act 



(•) Upper and Lower 

 and Loutli, 



Dundalk, Ardee, (t) Clonderlan, Jbrachan, and Moyarta . 



has 



