Fiach MacHugh O'Byrne led the guerrilla warfare against the British in the mountains of Wicklow.
      He died in battle in 1597 and his head was impaled outside Dublin Castle.

    One of the more notable rebel  leaders, William  Michael (Billy) Byrne of Ballymanus was the youngest son of Garret Byrne. Billy and older brother Garret Jr. became rebels in the 1789 Rebellion.
    Billy  was one of the leaders of the Wicklow force in the ill-fated battle of Arklow on June 9, 1798. He also led a losing battle on June 21 at Vinegar Hill. Byrne went into hiding following that defeat.
    He was arrested by the British in Dublin in March of 1799 and spent the next six months imprisoned in the Wicklow Gaol.
    While other  inmates  were either locked in their cells or  were manacled, Billy Byrne's  cell door remained open all day to visitors.
      A powerful and popular rebel, Byrne was convicted on manufactured evidence and by paid witnesses at his June 24, 1799 trial.
      On September 21, 1799, he was taken to Gallows Hill, a half mile outside Wicklow on the old Glenealy Road, and executed.

HUGH VESTY BYRNE, a lieutenant of the rebel leader Michael Dwyer, Byrne fought at the battles of Arklow, Vinegar Hill and Hacketstown.
    With the retreat of the rebel force into the Wicklow Mountains, Dwyer and a small band of loyal followers including Byrne held out against the British and Protestant forces. By 1803 however the pressure on Dwyer had increased to a point where he surrendered with the understanding that he and his four lieutenants would be pardoned and with their families to America.
  Byrne had been imprisoned at the Wicklow Gaol following Dwyer's surrender. He was one of the few men who ever escaped from the Gaol however his fate was unalterably linked with Dwyer.
  Dwyer had been held at the Kilmainham Gaol until 1805 when he learned that he was to be sent as a free man, not to America but to the penal colonies of New South Wales -- Australia.
  On August 28, 1805 Dwyer and his wife Mary;  his first cousin, Hugh Vesty Byrne his wife Rachael and their children; and Dwyer's other lieutenants, Arthur Devlin, Hohn Meenagh and Martin Burke left Cobh Harbour aboard the ship "Tellicherry."
  Landing in New South Wales in early 1806, the men were given 100 acres of land and the promise of a new life.
  That promise was shattered by the British Governor of New South Wales -- Captain William Bligh, the infamous commander of H.M.S. Bounty. Bligh had Dwyer, Byrne and the others arrested on charges of seditious activities. They were cleared by the court only to be re-arrested by Bligh and sent to various convict depots including Norfolk Island and Van Diemen's Land.
    Bligh was eventually removed from office during the Rum Rebellion and Byrne, Dwyer and the others released and pardoned. They eventually returned to their farms at Liverpool near Sydney.