Half-hanging

Half-hanging of United Irishmen by government forces in 1798.

Half-hanging is a method of torture in which the victim is non-lethally hanged. The victim may be strangled to the point of unconsciousness, in which case they are revived. It was part of the medieval British capital punishment of being hanged, drawn and quartered.

During the Irish Rebellion of 1798 against British rule in Ireland, government forces, ^[1] in particular the militia ^[2] and yeomanry, frequently used half-hanging against suspected rebels. A prominent victim of half-hanging was Anne Devlin, the housekeeper of Robert Emmet. ^{[3] [4]}

Half-hanging was also used against slaves in the United States, for example in Richmond, Virginia. In his 1849 narrative, Henry Box Brown recounts how, in the aftermath of Nat Turner's Rebellion, many slaves "found away from their quarters after dark...were suspended to some limb of a tree, with a rope about their necks, so adjusted as not to quite strangle them, and then they were pelted by the men and boys with rotten eggs." ^[5]

See also

• Hanging
• Waterboarding
• John Smith (housebreaker), who earned the nickname Half-hanged Smith after surviving a sentence of hanging ^[6]

References

1. Hay, Edward (1847). History of the Irish Insurrection of 1798,: Giving an Authentic Account of the Various Battles Fought Between the Insurgents and the King's Army, and a Genuine History of Transactions Preceding that Event. With a Valuable Appendix. John Kenedy. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
2. Pakenham, Thomas (1997). The year of liberty : the great Irish rebellion of 1798. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 36. ISBN   978-0-297-82386-5 . Retrieved 27 June 2024.
3. Madden, Richard Robert (1847). The Life and Times of Robert Emmet, Esq. 10, Wellington Quay, Dublin: James Duffy. p. 187. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
4. Ward, James (11 November 2018). Memory and Enlightenment: Cultural Afterlives of the Long Eighteenth Century. Springer. p. 168. ISBN   978-3-319-96710-3 . Retrieved 27 June 2024.
5. Stearns, Charles (1849). Narrative of Henry Box Brown, Who Escaped from Slavery Enclosed in a Box Three Feet Long, Two Wide, and Two and a Half High. Written from a Statement of Facts Made by Himself. With Remarks upon the Remedy for Slavery. Boston: Brown & Stearns. p. 38. Retrieved 2025-06-28.
6. Deary, Terry (2005). "Cool for Criminals". Loathsome London. Horrible Histories (1st ed.). London: Scholastic. p. 63. ISBN   9780439959001.