Henry Monro, United Irishman who was too honourable towards the enemy

Both Monro and McCracken were of Ulster-Scots descent.

Munro was either a direct or collateral descendant of Major-General Robert Munro who was sent over from Scotland in April 1642 to bolster (or rescue) the Ulster-Scots settlement after the 1641 rebellion. He was defeated by Owen Roe O’Neill at the Battle of Benburb in June 1646.

Both Monro and McCracken were Masons and engaged in the textile trade, Monro being a linen draper. There was considerable overlap between the Masons and the United Irishmen, providing excellent cover for their seditious activities. Their involvement in the textile trade fulfilled the same function. For those interested in Masonic conspiracies, they need look no further than the 1798 rebellion.

Monro had allegedly become a United Irishman in 1795 after seeing a member of his Masonic lodge publicly flogged in Lisburn on suspicion of being a rebel. However, Munro had been involved in the Volunteer movement in the 1780s and would probably have already subscribed to radical views on reform and ‘Catholic emancipation’ which would have disposed him to joining the organisation.

In 1798 both Monro and McCracken were slotted into leadership roles at the last moment. When Robert Simms resigned at the beginning of June as adjutant-general of Antrim (because he would not act without French military intervention), Henry Joy McCracken was appointed to the vacant command and Monro was appointed to command of the Co Down insurgents following the arrest of the Rev Steele Dickson, the adjutant-general of Down elect (and Presbyterian minister of Portaferry). Munro was unknown to many of his subordinates in Newtownards. The authorities did not ascertain his identity until after his defeat.

Although of Ulster-Scots descent, Monro was the product of a mixed marriage. His father was a Presbyterian and his mother was a member of the Church of Ireland.

On June 11, while at the head of a force of 7,000 rebels at Saintfield, he sent a detachment to seize the town of Ballynahinch, halfway between Lisburn and Downpatrick. The town was occupied without opposition but it was evacuated on the evening of June 12, when General Nugent advanced from Belfast with a government force numerically inferior to the rebels, but much superior to them in artillery.

During the night, word was conveyed to Munro, who had taken up a position outside the town, that the victorious troops within were in a state of disorder, drinking, burning, and plundering.

Despite the entreaties of his subordinates, Monro’s misguided chivalry meant that he refused to countenance a night-time attack: ‘We scorn to avail ourselves of the ungenerous advantage which night affords; we will meet them in the open blush of day; we will fight them like men, not under the cloud of night but the first rays of tomorrow's sun.’

Several hundred of his best men immediately deserted, appreciating that a night-time attack represented their best chance, or even only chance, of success.

On the morning of June 13 the rebels entered the town, and had apparently gained the day when the bugle sounded for the retreat of the government troops. The insurgents, misinterpreting the signal for a charge, fled in disorder from the south, while Nugent's men were evacuating Ballynahinch by the north. The latter soon rallied and cut off the retreat of the insurgents in all directions but one.

Through this loophole Munro led about 150 men after the rest had been hopelessly routed. In the pursuit no quarter was given by the 22nd Dragoons and the Hillsborough Yeoman Cavalry, Betsy Gray, her brother and fiancé being the victims who are still remembered in popular memory.

Monro fled and escaped in the direction of Slieve Croob. For several days he was concealed by a man well-known for his loyalist sympathies.

Monro then sought refuge between Lisburn and Hillsborough where he was hidden by a farmer called William Holmes who promised to conceal him for a few days until an amnesty might be declared in return for £5 and a parcel of linen shirts.

Holmes having been rewarded for concealing Monro, then more or less immediately betrayed him to the authorities.

Monro was court martialled in Lisburn on June 16, behaving with great dignity and fortitude which greatly impressed the officers conducting the trial.

Sentenced to death, gallows were erected in Castle Street outside his shop and home.

At 4pm, ‘dressed in a dark coat, nankeen breeches and white stockings’, he was led to the place of execution. On the way he was allowed to call at the home of the Rev Snowden Cupples, his rector, to receive communion.

At the foot of the gallows, Munro settled several accounts, including one with a Captain Stewart which had been disputed.

It is often said that Munro’s wife and mother were spectators of ‘the terrible tragedy’ but in ‘Ulster Biographies, Relating Chiefly to the Rebellion of 1798’ the Presbyterian historian the Rev W T Latimer refutes this on the strength of the testimony of a Mr McCall who had ‘more knowledge of these matters than any person now alive’.

Latimer records Monro’s final words as ‘I die for my country’.

In accordance with the verdict of the court martial, his head was severed and placed on Lisburn market house.

W T Latimer offers this assessment of Munro: ‘He possessed a considerable amount of military skill, but that skill was rendered useless by strange ideas of honour, which prevented him from taking advantage of opportunities more favourable to the lot of any other commander of the Northern insurgents.’

While there is a flattering portrait of Henry Joy McCracken painted by Sarah Cecilia Harrison (1863-1941), the subject’s great-grand niece, the only depiction of Henry Munro would appear to be an extremely unflattering etching by Thomas Rowlandson showing a heavily armed Munro on horseback, leading an army of yokels – probably inspired by Edmund Burke's characterisation of French revolutionaries as 'a swinish multitude' in his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' (1790).