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8 in advance, and none were successful. The habeas corpus act was suspended, and this action was promptly followed up by arrests, court-martials, imprisonments, and banishments to the penal colony at Australia.

"In March, 1867," writes McCarthy, "an attempt at a general rising was made in Ireland. It was a total failure; the one thing on which the country had to be congratulated was that it failed so completely and so quickly as to cause little bloodshed. Every influence combined to minimize the waste of life. The snow fell that spring as it had scarcely ever fallen before in the soft, mild climate of Ireland. Silently, unceasingly it came down all day long and all night long; it covered the roads and fields; it made the gorges of the mountains untenable, and the gorges of the mountains were to be the encampments and the retreats of the Fenian insurgents. The snow fell for many days and nights, and when it ceased falling the insurrectionary movement was over. The insurrection was literally buried in that unlooked-for snow."