Taken from Ruan O'Donnell's, The Rebellion in Wicklow 1798, Dublin: Irish Academic Press, pp.247-248 This is from the 2nd Battle of Hacketstown: Revd James McGhee with nine orangemen offered strong resistance to rebels who approached the otherwise vulnerable rear wall of the barracks. Among those who had taken refuge in his fortified house was Garret Byrne's estranged wife whom Musgrave alleged he 'wished to get rid of' and a contingent of Donoughmore (Imaal) loyalists who found themselves pitted against many of their Republican neighbours from behind the protection of the stone walls of fortified houses. 284 The Imaal loyalists were very probably supplementary yeoman (sic), given that the majority of military age male Protestant farmers of the valley had enlisted, a commitment which obliged them to evacuate their homes with their families for the comparative safety of Hacketstown and Donard on the onset of rebellion. Some of their peers even left the garrisoned Baltinglass in June in favour of the slightly less threatened sector of Ballitore in Kildare. The Imaal women in McGhee's house procured ammunition and loaded the weapons while their husbands, who included members of the Fenton, Hanbidge and Finlay families, monitored and fired upon the rebels surging around the front of the auxiliary barracks. Finlay was credited with discharging a blunderbuss at close range which 'cut a lane' through attackers who had been advancing under the cover of featherbeds. Moderate clerical magistrates Revd Brownrigg and Revd Blake were praised for their conduct in the battle and were probably with McGhee's group. 285 284 Byrne, Memoirs, 1, p.28 285 McGhee to [Cooke], 7 May 1798, NA, 620/37/31. See also Fitzpatrick, Sham Squire, p.335 and Garret Byrne and Edward Fitzgerald to Portland, 8 April 1799, PRO, HO 100/66/411. Some of McGhee's 'prompt and decided measures' during the rebellion years left him vulnerable to prosecution. Petition of James McGhee, 22 April 1801, NA, OP 104/3 (1a).