Francis Carlin supplies me with this note. “Redmond O’Hanlon was born about 1623 in the Country Armagh where his father owned seven townlands. During the Cromwellian settlement this estate was taken over by the English. Then Redmond and his three brothers took to the hills as “Rapparees.” He went to France, where he was given the title of Count, which title was credited to him later in the French gazettes. He returned to Ireland before 1671 and became the leader of the “Rapparees” of Ulster. Having refused to bear witness against the Primate, Oliver Plunkett, one hundred pounds was offered for his head by Ormonde, the viceroy of Ireland. He was slain while asleep by a clansman who brought his head to Downpatrick Gaol. The Receiver’s Book in the Dublin Record Office contains the following entry, ‘Paid to Art O’Hanlon as a reward for killing Redmond O’Hanlon, a proclaimed Rebell and Traytor, as by Concordation dated 6th of May 1681—One Hundred Pounds.’ ”
The nearest translation of “Rapparees”would be “guerillas,” and perhaps the best comparison would be with the “Comitadjis” of Turkish Bulgaria and Macedonia. The disbanded Irish armies formed the nucleus for these bands. They levied toll on the Planters who had taken over the confiscated Irish estates; they avenged some of the wrongs inflicted upon the peasantry, and they checked the exactions of “the Bashaws of the west and south,” as Lecky calls the landowners of the time. Unfortunately there was always a pull from the woods and hillsides of Ireland towards the camps of the Irish Brigade in France. See “The Irish Rapparees” and note to it.
