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Evidently O'Connell family there from 1746 as well - did you know that ?
http://en.geneanet.org/fonds/individus/?exact_day=&exact_month=&exact_year=&ignore_each_patronyme=&ignore_each_prenom=&size=10&sourcename=&nom=oconnell&prenom=&prenom_operateur=or&place__0__=&zonegeo__0__=France&country__0__=FRA&region__0__=&subregion__0__=&place__1__=&zonegeo__1__=&country__1__=&region__1__=&subregion__1__=&place__2__=&zonegeo__2__=&country__2__=&region__2__=&subregion__2__=&place__3__=&zonegeo__3__=&country__3__=&region__3__=&subregion__3__=&place__4__=&zonegeo__4__=&country__4__=&region__4__=&subregion__4__=&from=&to=&go=1

I knew Daniel O'Connell was educated there by a rich uncle, but I've never found a link between his family and mine.  Not until the 1840s, when the Reverend Nicholas John Halpin was editing an ultra-Loyalist newspaper called the Dublin Evening Mail and seeking a personal favour from O'Connell - his political nemesis.

A great question, garstonite.  All of the Halpin's we're interested in were Protestant, but some of them had confusing sympathies for and attachments to Catholics.  They themselves say they came from county Louth, in the north east corner of Ireland, and many of them used the surnames Halpin and Halfpenny interchangeably, placing them among the large mix of Catholic and Protestant Halpins and Halfpennys found in Louth.  A developing theory of my own is that they were what Irish historians call 'Old English' - that is, they settled in Ireland as colonizers before the English reformation and the conversion of England to Protestantism.  Thereafter, over the course of a few generations and in response to events in Ireland and abroad, more and more of them converted, with the last of the conversions occurring between the Cromwellite wars and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.  If there were any Catholics left in the Halpin family after that point, they probably converted in response to the Penal Laws, introduced to deprive the native Irish of the remainder of their lands and properties.  This seems to me to be the most likely course of events.

Nicholas's line of descendants settled in Portarlington, Queen's County, some time before the 1760s, where they were associated with the education of the Ascendancy's children.  I've been trying to link a certain Christopher Halpin, who was a distiller in Dublin in 1798, to the rest of the Halpin clan, and your discovery of a 'Christophe', son of Nicholas, has given me the best indication yet that I might be on the right track.  Hence my gratitude and excitement.

So your speculations as to the possible participation of the Halpins in the events surrounding the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the Anglo Dutch War are certainly not wild.  They fit with a trend and a pattern that was repeated in the 18th and 19th centuries.  Many of the Halpins were indeed 'fighting men'.

Thanks for the feedback on the French Halpins.  It's greatly appreciated.  The family we're interested in spent most of the 18th and 19th centuries in Ireland and England, with forays into France around the time of the revolution in 1789, with the actor John Edmund Halpin being among a number of English pow's and detainees held at Fontainebleu and Verdun in May of 1803. 

The Robert Halpin you've uncovered was the Rev Robert Crawford Halpin (1815 - 1889), who married Eleanora Wallace in 1847.  Robert's father was William Halpin (1777 - 1862), who fought in the Napoleonic wars on the British side, which explains Robert's birth in France.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Infant mortality rate was very high back then, and childbirth killed more young women than just about anything else.  Thank you again, Carol.  Much appreciated.