Limerick did not at first take any decided part, but stood upon its defence. Clonmel and Dungarvan admitted the Leinster insurgents in December, a few days after St. Leger's raid. A party commanded by Ormonde's brother Richard came to the gate of Waterford on the day after Christmas, but the mayor, Francis Briver, refused to let him in. Two other attempts were made before Twelfth Day. The mob of the town and a majority of the corporation were opposed to the mayor, but he held his own for some time, received English fugitives within the walls, and kept them there till shipping could be had for themselves and such property as they had been able to carry away. His own life was frequently in danger, and his hand was badly bitten by a rioter who resisted arrest. On another day, says Mrs. Briver, who took an active part, 'when I heard so many swords were drawn at the market cross against my poor husband, I ran into the streets without either hat or mantle and laid my hands about his neck and brought him in whether he would or no ... This and much more the mayor has suffered seeking to let their goods go with the English.' Mountgarret was excluded, but in April his son Edmund was admitted with 300 men, and the townsmen gave up their cannon.[4]
[Sidenote: State of Connaught. Ranelagh and Clanricarde.]
[Sidenote: Hesitation of the Galway gentry.]
Roger Jones, created Viscount Ranelagh, was Lord President of Connaught, and lay at Athlone with only a troop of horse and two companies of foot. The government of the county of Galway was vested by special patent in the Earl of Clanricarde, who positively refused the request of the Roscommon gentlemen to take command of their county, and thus ignore the Lord President's authority. Mayo was entrusted by the Lords Justices to Lord Mayo and to Dillon, Viscount Costello, who were both at this time professing Protestants. Sir Francis Willoughby, the governor of Galway fort, was in Dublin when the rebellion broke out, and his son Anthony, who was young and violent, commanded in his absence. Clanricarde was at Portumna when he heard of the outbreak, and he at once warned the mayor of Galway to be on his guard. The Lords Justices refused to send arms from Dublin on the ground that the passage was not safe, but told him to take what he could find at Galway. A hundred calivers, many of them unserviceable, and as many pikes were all that could be had. His own castles of Portumna, Loughrea, and Oranmore were in a defensible state, and he came to Galway on November 6. Richard Boyle, Archbishop of Tuam, took refuge in the fort, and Clanricarde's castle of Aghenure, on the western shore of Lough Corrib, was seized by the O'Flahertys. On the 11th a town-meeting was held, and the citizens resolved to hold Galway for the King. During the next three months there were frequent acts of violence on both sides, Willoughby treating the citizens as conquered, and they retorting by capturing and confining his stray soldiers. On December 29 the lords of the Pale invited the nobility and gentry of the county of Galway to join them, urging the legal grievances under which Roman Catholics laboured, and the severe measures of Coote and others. This did not make Clanricarde's task easier, but he came to Galway on February 5, and patched up an accommodation. On the 11th he left the town for a fortnight, and during the interval an outrage was committed in the neighbourhood which rivalled the worst of the Ulster atrocities.[5]