28 May 1798: That morning the Wexford insurgents, amounting to several thousand people, marched northwards to Camolin. By the middle of the day they were in Ferns and by the early afternoon they had reached the outskirts of Enniscorthy and by this time numbered up 7,000 people. The garrison that opposed them at Enniscorthy was supplied with small arms but had no artillery and numbered only about three hundred men. The rebels were without artillery too and mostly carried pikes and homemade weapons but they stormed the town successfully and drove the garrison southwards toward Wexford Town. Enniscorthy was left more or less a blackened ruin. As a result the United Irishmen made Vinegar Hill, just to east of the town their headquarters.
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