Following the publication of the Ethna Carbery poem bearing his name in 1902, where he is associated with events around the Battle of Antrim, he is alleged to have been a member of the United Irishmen and claimed as a participant in their rebellion of 1798.
[3] Some of these men had been British soldiers (members of the Irish militia) who changed sides in the conflict, and as such were guilty of treason and thus exempt from the terms of amnesty offered to the rank and file of the United Irishmen.
As a warning to others, it is proper to observe that the whole of his life was devoted to disorderly proceedings of every kind, for many years past, scarcely a Quarter-sessions occurred but what the name of Roger McCorley appeared in a variety of criminal cases.
His body was given up to dissection and afterwards buried under the gallows…thus of late we have got rid of six of those nefarious wretches who have kept this neighbourhood in the greatest misery for some time past, namely, Stewart, Dunn, Ryan, McCorley, Caskey and the notorious Dr. Linn.
[citation needed] The melody for "Roddy McCorley" was reused in 1957 for "Sean South", about a failed operation that year during the IRA's "Border Campaign".
[7] An account of McCorley's career compiled in the early twentieth century from local traditions and correspondence with his descendants,[8] Who Fears to Speak of '98?, was written by the Belfast antiquary and nationalist Francis Joseph Bigger.