School: Kiltegan
- Location:
- Kiltegan, Co. Wicklow
- Teacher: S. Foxton
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0917, Page 205
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Kiltegan
- XML Page 205
- XML “Local Heroes”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- Michael Dwyer and Samuel McAlaster were two of the local heroes in the district of Kiltegan.
Michael Dwyer was born in the Glen of Imail in the year 1771, he went to school near Kilranelagh.In 1798 he was appointed to the post of captain, under General Byrne of Ballymanus,. He had a band of followers, Francis Harmon, Hugh Vesty Burne, Samuel McAlaster, Pat Costello, Arthur Devlin, John Meade, Andrew Thomas, Thomas Brandon and Martin Burke.
Between the year 1790 and 1798 he and his followers kept up a guerilla warfare against the English solders. They lived in the moutnains and stayed in lonely farms. If they were pressed by the Militia tehy retreated to the caves in the mountains fighting as they went. Food was brought to them by the loyal mountain folk.
A price of £1,000 was put on his head by the English Government. His defiance of British rule led to the making of the three military roads, which are forty(continues on next page)
