I'm from Carlow, and I was told by my school teacher when I was a kid that Carlow was always a Garrison town and therefore safe for the supporters of the Crown during Nationalist unrest. The Brits wanted to march south and they had 2 routes - thru Wicklow (full of mountains and easy ambush country) or the longer way thru their stronghold of Carlow. So while Carlow people sing it like their rebel song - they didn't do anything in this case. The Brits came thru Wicklow because their intelligence said that rebels had withdrawn from Wicklow to consolidate their forces, but they had been fed false information (a rebel allowed himself to be caught and tortured to pass on false info) and the rebels ambushed them and slaughtered them in the bottle neck passes of the Wicklow Mountains where the Irish held the high ground. So follow me up to Carlow is a taunt. If they had gone to Carlow - they would have lived. So I was told anyway. Check with a Historian.