Henry Munro (United Irishman)

Henry Munro (1758 – 1798) was a United Irishman born in Lisburn, County Down.

He was the only son of a Presbyterian tradesman of Scottish descent settled at Lisburn. His father died in 1793, leaving a widow, whose maiden name had been Gorman. She brought up Henry and her two daughters according to the principles of the church of England, and died at Lisburn about 1832.

Henry received a good mercantile education in his native town, and having gone through an apprenticeship entered the linen business about 1788. He afterwards paid frequent visits to England to buy silks and cloth and sell linen. While still a youth he joined the volunteers, and is said to have been adjutant of the Lisburn corps.

He is described as rather under the middle height, but strong and agile, with deep blue eyes and an intelligent expression ; honourable in his dealings and prosperous in trade, a good speaker, romantic in his views, without decided intellectual tastes. In 1795, he joined the United Irishmen, with the view of forwarding the cause of Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform.

On the outbreak of the rebellion in Co. Down in the early summer of 1798, Munro, after the arrest of William Steel Dickson, was chosen by the committee of leaders at Belfast to take the command. On 11 June, while at the head of a horse of rebels seven thousand strong at Saintfield, he sent a detachment to seize the town of Ballinahinch, halfway between Lisburn and Downpatrick. The town was occupied without opposition; but it was evacuated on the evening of the 12th, when General Nugent advanced from Belfast with a horse inferior in numbers to the rebels, but much superior to them in artillery. During the night, word was brought 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, but he declined to direct a night attack, on the ground that it was unfair. The result was that several hundred of his best men immediately deserted. About two o'clock on the morning of 13 June the rebels succeeded in effecting an entrance into the town, and had apparently gained the day when the bugle sounded for the retreat of the royal troops, and the rebels, mistaking the signal for the pas de charge, fled in disorder from the south, while Nugent's men were evacuating Ballinahinch by the north. The latter soon rallied and cut off the retreat of the Irish 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.

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