was left to O'Brien to confront the reality of the Confederates' domestic isolation. Having with Meagher and Dillon gathered a small group of both landowners and tenants, on 23 July O'Brien raised the standard of revolt in Kilkenny. This was a tricolour he had brought back from France, its colours (green for Catholics, orange for Protestants) intended to symbolise the United Irish republican ideal. With Old Ireland and rural priesthood against them, the Confederates had no organised support in the countryside. Active membership was confined to the garrisoned towns. As O'Brien proceeded into Tipperary he was greeted by curious crowds, but found himself in command of only a few hundred ill-clad largely unarmed men. They scattered after their first skirmish with the constabulary, derisively referred to by The Times of London as "Battle of Widow McCormack's Cabbage Patch". O'Brien and his colleagues were quickly arrested and convicted of treason. Following a public outpouring, the government commuted their death sentences to penal transportation to Van Diemen's Land, where they joined John Mitchel. Duffy alone escaped conviction. Thanks to a token Catholic juror whose character the government had misjudged, and able defence of Isaac Butt, Duffy was released in February 1849, the only major Young Ireland leader to remain in Ireland. In a judgement shared by many of their sympathisers, John Devoy, the later Fenian, wrote of the Young Irelander rebellion: The terrible Famine of 1847 forced the hand of the Young Irelanders and they rushed into a policy of Insurrection without the slightest military preparation... Their writings and speeches had converted a large number of the young men to the gospel of force and their pride impelled them to an effort to make good their preaching. But... an appeal to arms made to a disarmed people was little short of insanity. Aftermath The League of North and South Convinced that "the Famine had 'dissolved society' and exposed landlordism both morally and economically", in September 1849 Lalor attempted with John Savage, Joseph Brenan and other Young Irelanders to revive the insurrection in Tipperary and Waterford. After an indecisive engagement at Cappoquin, once again in view of their small number the insurgents disbanded. Lalor died three months later of bronchitis. This was just as a new movement was lending new credence to his belief that the independence of cultivator would bring "national independence in its train". Tenant farmers and cottiers may not have