THE INSURRECTION OF 1641.
The Bloody Bridge, and other Papers rotating to the Insurrec- tion of 1641. By Thomas Fitzpatrick, LL.D. (Sealy, Bryers, and Walker, Dublin. 7s. 6d.) — "The Insurrection of 1641 did not differ so much from the great movements for redress of long-standing grievances as to be altogether blameless. There were many crimes committed which must be deplored and condemned. On the other hand, the alleged Massacre '—the Massacre of Milton, Temple, Borlase, May, Rushworth, Cox, Harris, Carlyle, and Froude—is a stupendous falsehood, even on the showing of the very documents upon which the charge is ignorantly or malignantly based, namely, the Depositions preserved in Trinity College, Dublin." These sentences constitute a very fair summary of the reasoning advanced in this book, and also sufficiently indicate the spirit in which it is written. Dr. Fitzpatrick takes up " atrocities " said to have been committed on the Roman Catholic side in Sir Phelim O'Neill's Rebellion one after another, beginning with the famous Bloody Bridge or " Ballagh" near Newcastle in County Down, and seeks to reduce them to what he regards as their proper propor- tions. Undoubtedly he shows great skill, as well as almost terrible earnestness, in combating the views of ultra-Protestant historians who base their representations on the Depositions in Trinity College, of which he says that "while they were intended to blacken to the utmost the Irish Catholics of the time—indeed of all time—the fact (heretofore not sufficiently, if at all, recog- nised) is that so far from affording proof or indication of general massacre either attempted or intended, the volumes contain ample evidence—all the more cogent because incidental and in- voluntary, if not reluctant—of the baselessness and malignity of such imputations." The book is indeed a very effective piece of special pleading, and will have to be carefully considered by all future historians of Ireland who aim at being accurate and above partisanship. Dr. Fitzpatrick cannot, however, be con- sidered to strengthen his case by talking of "Tam Carlyle."
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