Massacre of Dunlavin Green

Dunlavin Green executions
Location	Dunlavin, County Wicklow, Ireland
Date	26 May 1798
Attack type	Firing squad
Deaths	36
Non-fatal injuries	3
Perpetrator	British Army

The Dunlavin Green executions refers to the summary execution of 36 suspected rebel prisoners and Theobald Wolfe Tone in County Wicklow by the British military shortly after the outbreak of the rebellion of 1798. There are several accounts of the events, recorded at differing times and differing in detail.

The British government had begun raising yeomanry forces from the local Irish population in 1796. The force, composed of both Catholics and Protestants, was raised to help defend against a possible French invasion of Ireland and to aid in the policing of the country. The United Irishmen had long threatened a rebellion in Ireland, which finally occurred in late May 1798. Major uprisings of the rebellion only occurred in Ulster, Wicklow and Wexford, a county in the province of Leinster. For several months prior to May 1798, Wicklow and many other areas of the country had been subject to martial law which had been imposed in an effort to prevent the long threatened rebellion.

The campaign extended against the military itself as some corps of yeomen and militia, especially those with Catholic members, were suspected as United Irish infiltrators who had joined to get training and arms. Several days after the outbreak of the rebellion, the yeomanry and militia at Dunlavin were called out on parade and informed by their commanding officer that he had information on the identities of those in the corps who were affiliated with the United Irishmen among them. The British did not actually have such information, but twenty-eight fell for their bluff and came forward in hopes of receiving clemency. Those who came forward were immediately arrested and imprisoned while several were subjected to flogging in an effort to extract information about the rebels plans and organization. Those who were outed as affiliates of the United Irishmen were imprisoned in the Market House of Dunlavin, while the British officers decided what to do with them.

The following day, Captain William Ryves of Rathsallagh yeoman had his horse shot from under him by rebels while on patrol. Ryves rode to Dunlavin the next day and brought eight suspected rebels imprisoned by his corps with him. There he met with Captain Saunders of the Dunlavin yeomanry. It was decided that their prisoners, a total of 36 men, should be put to death. On 26 May, Market Day, the 36 were taken to the green, lined up and shot in front of the townspeople, including, in some cases, their own families. The firing squad returned to the Market House where others were flogged or hanged. Before the bodies of the shot men were removed, soldiers' wives looted them of valuables, one wounded man protested but he was finished off by a soldier. The bodies were either removed for burial by their families or interred in a common grave ("large pit") at Tournant cemetery. One man survived, despite grievous wounds, and lived to "an advanced age". Two more men, either hanging or about to be, were saved by the intervention of a "respectable Protestant" and escaped.