AUTHOK'8 AUTHOBIOGEAPHY. 



I now trust that those friends of mine who might 

 incline to think me hostile to my former — that is, 

 national — ideas, because of my long service in the 

 British army, will not henceforth consider me an un- 

 worthy descendant of my forefathers. The sept of 

 O'Hanlon was amongst the foremost of those who resisted 

 the invaders in the year 1414, when Sir John Talbot 

 was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the purpose of 

 crushing the Irish chieftains. Sir John having assembled 

 his army, marched first against the O'Hanlon, who were 

 supposed to be his strongest and most inveterate enemy 

 in Ulster ; but, after great slaughter, butcheiy, plunder, 

 and burning, he was obliged to retire from the bloody 

 field of battle owing to the superior bravery and tactics 

 of the O'Hanlon chieftains. In 1474, Sir Edward 

 Poynings was sent over to put down, and, if possible, 

 destroy the Irish people, and we then find that the 

 O'Hanlons and 0']S"eills were the leading clans who 

 opposed him. And in 1515, when the English govern- 

 ment called on the Secretary for Ireland to return the 

 names of the leading Irish rebel chieftains, that of 

 O'Hanlon was the first on the list. Sir Henry Sydney, 

 in a Report made by him in 1575 to the English govern- 

 ment, with Tefcrence to the state of Ireland at that 

 period, says, that he found the O'Hanlons and their 

 county — "Ulster — most obstinate, shewing an unusual 

 spirit of nationality. And in a Eeport of the Deputy in 

 1601, on the disaftected state of Ireland, it is mentioned 

 that Munster was well reduced, and *' began to taste the 

 sweetness of peace ;" that the like might be said of 

 Leinster, except as to the territories of the O'Moores 

 and O'Connors, but that in the northern part of Ulster, 

 the country of the O'Hanlons, they (the O'Hanlons) 

 were collecting in great force, and learning the tactics 

 of war. Again, in 1641, at the time of the great insur- 

 rection and massacre of the Irish in Ulster, when Lord 

 Caulfield resided in the castle of Claremount as Governor 

 of the fort, the O'Hanlons divided their forces, and one 



