Scullabogue Barn massacre

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The Scullabogue massacre was an atrocity committed on June 5, 1798, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The United Irishmen insurgents murdered over 100 loyalist civilians in this massacre in reprisal for the killing of their fighters who were taken prisoner by British forces.

Prior to the battle of New Ross (1798) a farm and out-buildings in the townland of Scullabogue were used as a staging post for rebel forces. The rebels locked over one hundred loyalist prisoners seized in the preparations for the attack, including women and children, into a barn to prevent their supplying military with intelligence on their plans.

Following the disastrous defeat at New Ross, fleeing and panicked surviving rebels brought news of military atrocities, including the incineration of rebel wounded in their makeshift hospital, which incensed elements of the rebel forces stationed at Scullabogue. After twice preventing a gathering mob from harming prisoners, the prisoners guards gave in to the crowd baying for vengeance and allowed some executions by musket-shot of a dozen or so particularly hated individuals. All semblance of control was quickly lost however and the barn was soon torched. People trying to escape the barn were stabbed and beaten to death or forced back into the flames.

While the memory of this gruesome massacre was regularly summoned to create sectarian divisions in later years, about a dozen of the murdered were Catholic and a proportion of the attackers were Protestant.

There is a Scullabogue Memorial stone in the graveyard of Old Ross Church of Ireland church. The theme is one of reconciliation.