It would be wrong to paint any members of the O’Hanlon clan of the sixteenth century or earlier as traitors because of cooperation or compliance with the dictates of the ruling English. Even Hugh O’Neill ….
….. had done so for the greater part of his life and there was not a clan ruler who at some time did not adopt this pragmatic approach.
Still it is necessary to record who among the O’Hanlons took the government side, especially during that last great Gaelic struggle. And there were O’Hanlons who took the English side, even in the Nine Years War.
Phelim O’Hanlon was a government agent, certainly for the first half of that war. He was slain in Newry in June 1599 and had issue:
1 Patrick, whose name appears on the Pension List of 1603. He received a grant of land in
2 Hugh, who left the government side and went to fight with Tyrone in July 1599 but then returned to the English. He was knighted by them. In 1600 he died fighting for them.
3 Phelim Og: he went to support Sir Eochy in January 1599.
4 Edmond Groome, who also petitioned Parliament in 1626 over an unpaid pension.
… O’Hanlons banished …