Redmond O'Hanlon (outlaw)

For the 20th century travel writer, see Redmond O'Hanlon.

Redmond O'Hanlon (c. 1620-April 25, 1681) was a 17th-century Irish tóraidhe or rapparee (guerrilla soldier-outlaw), and an important figure in the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

Early life

The author of an anonymous pamphlet gives his birthdate as c.1640, but researcher Stephen Dunford writes that 1620 is more likely. The pamphleteer gives his birthplace as Poyntzpass, County Armagh. Redmond O'Hanlon was the son of Loughlin O'Hanlon, rightful heir to the castle at Tandragee. As a young man he was sent for a "proper" education in England and later worked as a footboy to Sir George Acheson of Markethill, but was dismissed for stealing horses.

Rebel and Confederate soldier

After the Irish Rebellion of 1641, he joined the Irish Catholic rebel forces. He served under Owen Roe O'Neill at the Irish victory at the Battle of Benburb in 1646 but fled to France after the defeat of the Irish Confederation in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland 1649-53. O'Hanlon's family lands were confiscated under the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652. He spent several years in exile as an officer with the French army and was awarded the title of Count of the French Empire. It is not known when he returned to Ireland, but Dunford suggests it was around 1660, after the Restoration of King Charles II of England. After realizing there would be no restitution of his family's lands, he took to the hills around Slieve Gullion and became a notorious highwayman or rapparee, as they were known then. Many other disposed Irishmen flocked to his banner.

Outlaw

Although Redmond has often been compared to a real-life Robin Hood, the truth is more complex. Protestant landlords, militia officers, and even Anglican and Catholic priests would work as informal members of the O'Hanlon gang, giving him information and casing sites for him to rob. He would also force the landlords and merchants of northern Ireland to pay protection money. If they paid, it was said that they would not even need to bar their doors, as no one would dare to rob them. A letter from the era states that the criminal activities of the outlaw Count were bringing in more money than the King's revenue collectors.

In 1674 the colonial authorities in Dublin put a price on his head with posters advertising for his capture, dead or alive. But according to the letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, the Colonial militia sent after the O'Hanlon gang spent more time sacking and pillaging the peasantry than actively searching for the Count.

Henry St. John

Anglo-Irish landowner Henry St. John, who had been granted the traditional lands of the O'Hanlon clan, received Redmond's undying hatred when he began evicting the Count's clansmen in large numbers. St. John responded by waging a private war against the O'Hanlon Gang. The loss of his nineteen year old son while pursuing the Count only made Henry St. John increasingly brutal toward anyone suspected of aiding Redmond O'Hanlon. On September 9, 1679, St. John was riding on his estate with a manservant and the Reverend Lawrence Power, the Church of Ireland Rector of Tandragee. A party of O'Hanlon's associates rode into view and seized him, warning that he would be killed if a rescue was attempted. Then, however, a group of the family's retainers rode into view and opened fire on the kidnappers. As a result, Henry St. John received two pistol balls in the forehead.

At the landlord's funeral, an outraged Reverend Power denounced the rapparees and those landowners who did business with them. The full text of his sermon was subsequently printed in London under the name, "The Righteous Man's Portion." Outraged, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, ordered the assassination of Redmond O'Hanlon.

Death

Count Redmond O'Hanlon was murdered in his sleep by his foster brother and close associate Art MacCall O'Hanlon at Eight Mile Bridge near Hilltown, County Down on April 25, 1681. Art received a full pardon and two hundred pounds from the Duke of Ormond for murdering his leader. William Lucas, the militia officer who had recruited Art and arranged the killing, received a Lieutenant's commission in the British Army.

As was the custom, there were gruesome displays of his body parts including his head which was placed on a spike over Downpatrick jail. According to legend, Redmond O'Hanlon's mother travelled to Downpatrick and composed a caoine (in English "keen" or lament) upon seeing her son's head spiked over the jail. His remains are believed to lie in a family plot in Conwal Parish Church cemetery in Letterkenny, County Donegal, where his parents had fled from Henry St. John.

In popular culture

Redmond's popularity was immortalised in the pulp fiction of the era in addition to poems, ballads, and folktales which survive to the present day. In 1862 William Carleton published Redmond Count O'Hanlon; The Irish Rapparee, a novel loosely based upon the life of the outlaw Count. Sir Walter Scott is alleged to have begun researching a novel of his own, but gave up after finding documentation too scanty.

In addition, the Gaelic football team in his native Poyntzpass is named "The Redmond O'Hanlons" in his honor.

References

His life an times were the subject of one edition in the television documentary series "Rapairí" on TG4 in November 2009. This can be viewed for 35 days after transmission by accessing the archive on the channel's webcast site www.tg4.tv

• The O'Hanlons of Orior 1558-1691:Part II, Joseph Canning, Seanchas Ard Mhacha, pp. 111–129, 2002
• Dunford, Stephen. The Irish Highwaymen. Dublin: Merlin Publishing, 2001. ISBN 1903582024
• Rev. Laurence Power, The Righteous Man's Portion: Delivered in a Sermon at the Obsequies of the Noble and Renowned Gentleman Henry St. John, Esquire, Printed at London, 1680.
• R. A. The Life and Death of the Indefatigible Outlaw Redmond O'Hanlon, Printed at Dublin, 1682.

External links

• Redmond Count O'Hanlon, The Irish Rapparee (Google Books)
• "Redmond O'Hanlon - Outlaw or Folk Hero?" An Article Written for the South Armagh Genealogical Project
• "Bandit Country," A 2003 Magazine Article About the Outlaw Count
• "O'Hanlon Folkore," Containing Several Ballads About Count Redmond O'Hanlon
• The Heroic Outlaw in Irish Folklore and Popular Literature

Persondata
Name	Ohanlon, Redmond
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1620
Place of birth
Date of death	1681
Place of death