Henry Munro (United Irishman)

[2] He is described as rather under 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 and without decided intellectual tastes.

[2] 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 force inferior in numbers to the rebels, but much superior to them in artillery.

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.

He was immediately removed with one Kane, or Keane, who was captured at the same time, to Hillsborough, whence he was taken to Lisburn, tried by court-martial, and hanged opposite his own door, and in sight, it was said, of his wife and sisters.

He settled a money account with Captain Stewart, a yeomanry officer, at the foot of the gallows, then said a short prayer and mounted the ladder.

[2] Henry Munro's remains were believed to have been exhumed in 1843, during construction works on a family vault in Lisburn Cathedral's cemetery, and the identification of the corpse was confirmed by Rev.