Ireland had its share of highway robbers

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, 

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, 

And the highwayman came riding, riding, riding, 

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

Those lines are from a poem, The Highwayman, written by Alfred Noyes and first published in August 1906. It was a poem my mother loved and recited. She could fairly deliver a recitation and when witnessed, her dramatic performances were not readily forgotten. She had a long-standing connection with the highwayman theme, but more about that later.

So, who were those highwaymen? When did they reign and where did they come from? Whose side were they on and did we ever have one of them plying his trade here in the Ox Mountains?

Back in time 

The first mention of the word ‘highwayman’ dates from 1617. A highwayman was a robber who stole from those travelling, usually by coach and four. The thieves usually travelled on horseback and were well-armed. Highwaywomen, such as Katherine Ferrers, were said to also exist, often dressing as men. 

The great age of highwaymen was from the mid-17th century to the mid-18th century. What favoured them most at that time was a lack of governance and virtual absence of any police force: parish constables were almost entirely ineffective and detection and arrest was almost impossible.

An article written for Sky History by James Brigden explains that the pages of British history are packed full of the exploits of convicted criminals - from murderers and pirates to gangsters and robbers. He explains also that some of these figures, the highwaymen, became folk heroes.

Dick Turpin (1705-1739). Hands down the most famous British highwayman is Dick Turpin. A prolific thief from a young age, Turpin’s infamous career as a highwayman started in about 1735. Operating out of Epping Forest, he was known for holding up, often with violence and terror, mail coaches and stagecoaches. Turpin’s celebrated twelve-hour, 200-mile ride from London to York on his horse, Black Bess, in order to establish an alibi, almost certainly never happened, but has endured as part of Turpin folklore.

Katherine Ferrers (1634-1660). Though born into a wealthy family, Hertfordshire noblewoman Katherine Ferrers, immortalised in film and literature as the ‘Wicked Lady’, supposedly fell on hard times after her marriage and was obliged to take up highway robbery. On Nomansland Common in June 1660, Kate carried out her last stick up – but it went wrong, and she was shot, haring off into the night on her horse, mortally wounded. Her body was found by her servants the next day.

Here in Ireland, we also had our share of such highway robbers; on October 3rd, 1750, one of the most famous Irish highwaymen of all time, James McLaine, was executed at Tyburn outside London. During his short life, McLaine had developed a larger-than-life reputation.

Our very own highwayman 

Sean Henry in his book, Tales from the West of Ireland, relates an interesting tale under the heading, The Irish Highwayman. He starts with information on how such villains came into being and then, he begins to take us much nearer to home… to Bonniconlon, in fact.

The Irish highwaymen may be regarded as a more commercialised version of the Irish Rapparees. The Rapparees were mainly dispossessed landowners who had to make way for a newer set of Crown favourites and adventurers. This forced the dispossessed landowners to take to the woods and hills to wreak vengeance on the new set of landlords and other landowners.

Some highwaymen carried out raids and holdups of mail coaches singly while other operated with a small band of followers rarely exceeding half a dozen. To the latter category belonged Captain Gallagher, the famous highwayman. He was a native of Bonniconlon but spent part of his youthful days with an aunt in the townland of Derryronane, Swinford, near the wood of Barnalyra.

When Captain Gallagher decided on such a career, equipped with fast horses and the erratic blunderbusses of the period, he ranged over all east Mayo and parts of south Sligo. In addition to the holding up and robbing of the mail coaches, he raided the houses of landlords and other wealthy people. On one occasion, he raided the home of a particularly unpopular landlord near Killasser, and in addition to seizing all his valuables, he forced him to eat the eviction notices he had prepared for half a dozen of his tenants. The tale continues.

After some narrow escapes from the English soldiers, Captain Gallagher’s luck finally ran out. He was spending a quiet Christmas recovering from illness in a friend’s house in the parish of Attymass among the foothills of the Ox Mountains. A jealous neighbour of his host sent a message to the commanding officer of the Redcoats in Foxford that Captain Gallagher was staying in a house in Attymass.

With a force of nearly two hundred men, the Redcoats surrounded the house. Being ill, and in order to save his host and his family, the highwayman surrendered without resistance. He was rushed to Foxford and after a hasty sham trial was sentenced to be hanged and taken to Castlebar to have the sentence carried out.

The robbers 

I mentioned earlier that my mother had a long association with the highwayman theme. In 1938, when she was in her last year at Corsallagh National School, she wrote a piece for the school’s contribution to the National Folklore Collection. Her story, The Robbers, was handed down to her by her father. I am including her piece here and in doing so acknowledge The Schools’ Collection. I am sure her piece has something to do with Captain Gallagher, but maybe there was more than one highwayman in the Ox Mountains.

About seventy years ago, there lived a band of robbers at Lough Talt and they used to rob people going to Ballina. One day a man from this part of the country was coming from Ballina after selling butter. He had a mare with him and when he was coming near Lough Talt one robber man ran out and caught the mare by the bridle, but the man hit him on the knuckles with the whip and he let go the bridle, but still kept whistling for the help of other robbers and they were coming, but the man they were trying to catch drove his mare so fast that they could not catch him. There is a hillock at Logh Talt yet called 'The Robbers Den'.

A screenplay for The Highwayman was approved by Alfred Noyes, author of the famous poem, in the spring of 1947. First announced for a shoot in England over the summer of 1950, the film was, in fact, filmed in Hollywood in 1951. My mother’s piece was never made into a film!

* In publishing this article, we remember the late Steve Dunford, historian, author and illustrator, who passed away in 2021. Steve conducted a huge amount of research on Captain Gallagher and the local highwaymen of Mayo/Sligo, and two of his sketches accompany this article.