Publisher's Synopsis
CLONARD is situate about Twenty five miles from Dublin on the Western road leading to Mullingar. Tho' constituted a post town, it is a very small village, consisting of an Inn and a few thatched houses; but from its situation being on the confines of two counties, Kildare and Meath, and having a bridge across the river Boyne, which opens a communication from Dublin to Westmeath, and from thence to Athlone and the Province of Connaught, it must be considered as a very important pass in all times of commotion and war. On the Dublin side of the town is situated the mansion house of the Tyrrell family, and at present belongs to John Tyrrell Esq. It is an old fashioned house, fronting the road from which it is separated by a high wall and a court yard; having an extensive garden upon its right, and a sheet of water upon the left.-Mr. John Tyrrell, being a Magistrate of both Counties, Kildare and Meath, and having exerted himself early to suppress the disturbances which were occasioned by the Defenders, naturally became an object of their resentment, and having been repeatedly menaced with an attack, he fortified his house by building up the original hall door, opening another, which might flank the approach to the house, and barricading all the lower windows, so as to render them musquet proof. Upon the institution of the Yeomenry, Mr. John Tyrrell was honoured with a Commission to raise a Corps of Cavalry, which was immediately embodied, under the Title of the Clonard Cavalry, and Thomas Tyrrell, and Thomas Barlow, Esqs. were appointed Lieutenants. This Corps soon distinguished itself by its unwearied exertions to preserve the peace of the neighbourhood; but in the course of the Spring of 1798, Mr. John Tyrrell the Captain, receiving positive information of a conspiracy to take away his life, thought it prudent to retire with his family into England. The command of the Corps consequently devolved upon Mr. Thomas Tyrrell, the first Lieutenant, who had also at this critical period been appointed High Sheriff of the County of Kildare.-Upon the tenth of May 1798, he received an official letter, ordering the Clonard Cavalry upon permanent duty; in this emergency Mr. Thomas Tyrrell, finding his own house at Kilreiny about one mile and a half from Clonard inconvenient, and in truth indefensible from its situation, removed with his family to his Kinsman's house at Clonard, before described, where he mounted a guard of one Serjeant and 18 men who were to be relieved every week. Orders were about the same time issued to Captain O Ferrall of the Ballina Cavalry, to mount a permanent guard at Johnstown, near the Nineteen Mile house, which were accordingly complied with: but upon the 16th of May, reports of a general rising having been circulated, and being corroborated by encreasing outrages in the neighbourhood, Captain O Ferrall was permitted to fall back from Johnstown to Clonard in the night time for protection; repairing to Johnstown at four o'Clock in the morning, and retiring to Clonard in the evening.
