Captain Gallagher

Captain Gallagher (* in Bonniconlon County Mayo , † 1818 in Castlebar ) was an Irish mugger ( Highwayman ) who worked in Ireland at the end of the 18th century . His ventures made him a popular folk hero in Ireland.

Life

Gallagher grew up with an aunt in Derryronan near Swinford , near Barnalyra Forest. He began with a group of three to four bandits in eastern County Mayo, south County Sligo, and west Roscommon County robbing stagecoaches by day and robbing wealthy landowners on their estates by night. Ireland had been ruled by immigrant Protestant landlords from the 17th century onwards, dispossessed and ousted the old Catholic elite under British occupation. Partly this fought back through guerrilla activities ( Rapparees ), which went on until about the middle of the 18th century. The Highwaymen who came after that were mostly just looking for enrichment, but Gallagher (at a time when Catholic Irish were severely restricted in their property rights) also built a reputation for himself as a kind of Robin Hood (sometimes he is also among the late Rapparees).

On one occasion they forced a landowner in Killasser , who was particularly hated by the country folk, after they had stolen silver crockery and other possessions from him, to eat the numerous dismissals that had already been made for his Irish tenants.

Several times he was able to narrowly escape the English soldiers looking for him. On one occasion he disappeared through a window in front of the soldiers pushing in through the door and escaped on one of their horses, which he returned the next day with thanks. Most recently, 500 guineas were exposed to his capture. Finally, while he was recovering from an illness over Christmas in a friend's house in Attymass (according to other sources, Coolcarney or Rooskey) at the foot of the Ox Mountains , he was betrayed by a disapproving neighbor and by around 200 hastily summoned garrison soldiers from Ballina , Castlebar and Swinford surrounds. Many gang members had previously been caught in Westport . He was taken to Foxford , sentenced to death on a fast-track trial, and hanged in Castlebar . It was the last public execution on the gallows tree across from Daly's Hotel on the Mall in Castlebar. He was hanged with his secretary Walsh, where the rope broke on the first attempt and he broke his legs when he fell.

Before that, he gave information about his allegedly buried treasures. According to him, they would be under a rock in Barnalyra, the place where he grew up (near what is now Knock Airport ). When a little later research was carried out there, however, thousands of stones were found and only a jeweled sword was found. It has been suggested that Gallagher had hoped to be taken there personally to be freed from his friends hiding nearby.

He still lives on in legends in Ireland today, which revolve around the gold he buried and his hiding places. One is said to have last been on Glass Island in Lough Conn , another in the Ox Mountains near Rooskey and in the Ballylyra Forest.

Web links

• Excerpt from Sean Henry Tales from West Ireland on the Highwaymen Stand and Deliver website
• Captain Gallagher on the County Mayo website