United Irishmen in training, James Gillray

Outside a country ale-house, ruffians are practicing their weapons at close range on the effigy of a British soldier that is spiked on a spear (left). It wears helmet, coat stuffed with straw, and top-boots. One man levels a spear, another fires a misshapen pistol, a third, who is bare-legged, with a headsman's axe in his belt, fires a blunderbuss whose large bullets fall to the ground. In the foreground (right), a woman turns the handle of a grindstone on which a man sharpens a sword. On the ground is a pile of weapons: swords, daggers, spears, muskets, and a pistol. Behind (right), men with pikes and spears gather round the inn-door. They drink. The landlord fills a glass from a small keg. All wear tricolour cockades. The (pictorial) sign over the door is 'Tree of Liberty.' In the background are a broken paling, trees, and a mountainous sky-line (BM).
Courtesy of Boston Public Library