John Mullan, more commonly known as Shane Crossagh O'Mullan, was an Irish

rapparee Rapparees or raparees (from the Irish ''ropairí'', plural of ''ropaire'', whose primary meaning is "thruster, stabber", and by extension a wielder of the half-pike or pike), were Irish guerrilla fighters who operated on the Royalist side dur ...

outlaw An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them. ...

, who was executed in the 1720s at the Diamond, in

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry, is the second-largest City status in the United Kingdom, city in Northern Ireland, and the fifth-largest on the island of Ireland. Located in County Londonderry, the city now covers both banks of the River Fo ...

city.McKeefry, Rev. J., ''Shane Crossagh, The County Derry Rapparee''. Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland

Background

Shane Crossagh and his family, lived in Tullanee, Faughanvale, in the barony of Keenaght,

County Londonderry County Londonderry (Ulster Scots dialects, Ulster-Scots: ''Coontie Lunnonderrie''), also known as County Derry (), is one of the six Counties of Northern Ireland, counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty-two Counties of Ireland, count ...

. More specifically Tullanee is a small townland beside

Eglinton, County Londonderry Eglinton is a village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It lies east-north-east of Derry, to which it serves as a sleeper village, and west-south-west of Limavady. It resides within Derry and Strabane district. The City of Derry Ai ...

, and Tullanee is where the modern-day Faughanvale Presbyterian Church resides. Indeed the founding of the Church occurs a few years after Shane and his sons hanging. Shanes's father, Donal, and the rest of the family were evicted when a bailiff's son was insulted in Donal's house. When Shane was later caught cutting grass at the property, the family in an attempt to escape punishment relocated to Lingwood in the mountains above

Claudy Claudy () is a village and townland (of 1,154 acres) in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It lies in the Faughan Valley, southeast of Derry, where the River Glenrandal joins the River Faughan. It is situated in the civil parish of Cumber ...

. Here lived many people whose fathers had been dispossessed to make way for settlers from Great Britain. With Lingwood as his base, Shane would form a gang made up of people who were either greedy for plunder or for vengeance, becoming

s carrying out attacks and raids throughout the

Sperrins The Sperrins or Sperrin Mountains () are a mountain range in Northern Ireland. The range stretches from Strabane and Mullaghcarn in the west, to Slieve Gallion and the Glenshane Pass in the east, in the counties of Tyrone and Londonderry. Th ...

mountain range. Shane was eventually caught and hanged with his sons in the Diamond in Derry in the 1720s, being possibly interred between 1725 and 1735 in the cemetery of Banagher. The

Glenshane Pass The Glenshane Pass () is a major mountain pass cutting through the Sperrin Mountains in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is in the townland of Glenshane Pass on the main Derry to Belfast route, the A6. A large wildfire broke out in Gle ...

, through which the main road between Derry and Belfast runs, is named after him.

Crossagh

His nickname, ''Crossagh'', came from the Irish word "Crosach" meaning "pock-marked". It was an ancestral family name, and as such used by his father, probably derived from an ancestor who was scarred as a result of the pox. Possibly it was originally used to distinguish them from other Ó Maoláin's.

References

External links

* http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm?fuseaction=History&Surname=Mullin&UserID= {{DEFAULTSORT:OMullan, Shane Crossagh People from County Londonderry 18th-century Irish people Irish highwaymen 1722 deaths Year of birth unknown