Anthony Perry

Anthony Perry (c. 1760– 21 July 1798), known as the "screeching general" was one of the most important leaders of the United Irish Wexford rebels during the 1798 rebellion.

Perry was born in County Down, Ireland to a Protestant family and lived a prosperous life at Inch, near the Wexford/Wicklow border as a gentleman farmer.

He enlisted in the local yeomanry corps as a second lieutenant responding to the Governments appeal to save the kingdom from radicalism during the height of anti-Jacobin paranoia in the mid-1790s. He took the United Irish Oath in 1797 and was made a colonel. As a United Irish colonel, Perry was responsible for the organisation and recruitment of the movement in north Wexford. A measure of this success was evident by the fact that the brutal coercion campaign unleashed by the Government 1797–98 did not identify Wexford as a United Irish stronghold until barely a month before the eventual outbreak.

The arrival of the counter-insurgency campaign in Wexford, embodied by the dispatch of the North Cork Militia, ensured that high profile radicals like Perry would be the first to be subjected to arrest and interrogation. On 23 May Perry was arrested and taken by the North Cork Militia to Gorey for interrogation.

After enduring 48 hours of torture including being pitchcapped, Perry broke and revealed some names of comrades in the south Wexford movement but little of the north Wexford organisation. Acting upon the information tortured out of him, the authorities released Perry on 26 May and concentrated mainly on a round up of the United Irish leaders in Wexford town.

While the authorities concentrated on extracting intelligence about the rebel organisation from southern leaders such as Bagenal Harvey, Edward Fitzgerald, and John Henry Colclough, the rebellion erupted rapidly after being sparked off by a clash at The Harrow where rebels under Fr. John Murphy attacked and defeated a small yeoman cavalry force. A bloody series of raids for arms and attacks on loyalist forces ensued across the northern half of the county countered by roaming bands of yeomen burning and killing indiscriminately. Victories at battle of Oulart Hill and Enniscorthy followed, leaving the rebels in total control of the area between Enniscorthy and Gorey by 29 May.

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