Further pursuit was, therefore, useless, so they gave it up, and Deniston and O'Keefe escaped in safety, but were outlawed for three years afterwards, until a general pardon was proclaimed, when both men returned to their homes, only to find that the hand of the despoiler had filched from them their lawful possessions, to which they were never restored. The same night Pat Farrell's mare, Bonnie Bess, galloped home to his house at Ballinree riderless, and conveyed to his sorrowing family the sad tidings that Granard was lost, and Pat Farrell had died a patriot's death.

But the darkest scene in this melancholy battle had yet to be enacted, namely, the executions. As I said before, the effort to make a retreat had resulted in the capture of the rebels in dozens. These poor men - most of them country farmers and labourers - were tied hand and foot, and thrown for a whole night on the streets of Granard, guarded by a strong batch of yeomen. In the morning a number of yeomen, who had been sent out during the night to gather cattle for provisions, arrived with a drove of fat bullocks, and without any ceremony they drove this herd over the fallen, prostrate Irish, until they trampled the very life out of them; and such of them as showed any signs of animation after this brutal treatment, were given over to the tender mercies of Hepenstal, who swung them out of existence as fast as they were handed to him. History does not record this horrible British cruelty, neither does the historian who composed or compiled the
'Cornwallis Correspondence; but tradition, the unwritten history of every nation, does; and it is well known that the whole incidents of the battle have been carefully suppressed in order to hide these facts.

More than once have I seen references made to the cruelty of the British troops in foreign countries; but if they could be so cruel at home in Ireland, what must they not be away! Doubtless, Hepenstal may have instigated the commission of this wholesale sacrifice, though that is scarcely likely, seeing he was so fond of acting the hangman himself. A fearful fate overtook this Hepenstal afterwards ; for we are told, in a book called" The Informers of '98," that he was seized with ‘morbus pedicularis’, with which disease his body was devoured by vermin, and he died after twenty-one days in great agony. He is said to be interred in St. Michan's Churchyard, in Dublin.

Granard, since '98, has been a comparatively quiet and easy-going sort of place, and has managed to keep up in the race with the rest of Ireland, whether in political or commercial matters. The accession of the town within the past few months to corporate dignity, is in itself a proof of its increasing prosperity; and whilst there are few places more worthy of the attention of the antiquarian or the poet than Granard and its moat, I regret to say that very few people, even in the place itself, seem to care for its ancient glory. Many respectable families live in its neighbourhood; and in the town itself there are to be found a number of Tuites, Petits, and Daltons, who are the lineal descendants of the Anglo-Saxons of the twelfth century who settled here and became ‘Hiberniores
Hibernis ipsis’. The Reillys and O'Reillys, of East Breiffny, or Cavan, form a strong element here too, and are mentioned to the number of sixty-two as living in Granard Barony in the year 1659. There is no doubt that this parish was considered in olden days the central parish of Ireland, and that much importance was attached to it by the English of Meath and Leinster. Nevertheless, in modern days it has on many occasions fought stubborn battles for faith and fatherland, and has often proved a stumbling-block in the way or those who first endeavoured to use it as a power against the liberty or our nation.

Very fierce election battles were fought here since the Union, in which many men lost their lives and their homes when fighting for what they prized dearest on earth, the cause of " Their own dear native land."