17 December 1803: The famous Wicklow guerrilla leader, Michael Dwyer, surrendered to the British on this day. Since the failure of the Rising in 1798 he had kept up a resistance campaign in the Wicklow Mountains. Despite Dublin Castle putting a price on his head and conducting numerous sweeps of area by the Crown Forces Dwyer and his determined band always managed to evade capture. However the years of hardship in such a barren terrain and the mistreatment of members of his family in retaliation by the British led him to decide to call it a day and he came in of his own accord. 

The surrender of Michael Dwyer was the last event of the insurrection of 1798—1803. But, for several years subsequently, the Habeas Corpus Act continued suspended and an insurrection act was in full force. Never, up to the hour of Napoleon's abdication at Fontainebleau, did the spectre of a French invasion of Ireland cease to haunt the mind of England.

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

While his life was spared he was imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail and subject to harsh treatment there. In 1805 he was transported to Botany Bay with his family but was accused of trying to organise a rebellion in the Colony. He was convicted and sent to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). He clashed there with the Governor, Captain Bligh of Bounty fame and was sent by him to Norfolk Island where conditions were diabolical. When Bligh was recalled in 1808 he was able to return to Sydney and was  given back his 100 acres on which to settle and farm. He joined the local police in Liverpool NSW but was dismissed & his business ventures collapsed with large debts. He was imprisoned again in the Debtors Prison and died there from Dysentery on 23 August 1825.