Background
McMahon was the son of Lieutenant-General Charles Alexander McMahon, FRS, FGS (1830–1904), a edgeologist and Commissioner of both Lahore and Hisar in British India, and who, like his father Captain Alexander McMahon (born 1791 in Kilrea, County Londonderry, Ireland) had been an officer with the East India Company. The McMahons are the Gaelic clan of Mac Mathghamhna who had come originally from the medieval Irish kingdom of Airgíalla or Oriel in South Ulster/North Leinster, where they reigned from around 1250 until about 1600. Sir Henry's own family had settled in the Downpatrick area of County Down before his great-grandfather, The Rev. Arthur McMahon, moved to Kilrea, where he was minister to the local Presbyterian congregation between 1789 and 1794: a prominent Irish Republican, The Rev. McMahon was a member of the National Directory of the Society of United Irishmen and one of their colonels in Ulster during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. He apparently fought at the battles of Saintfield and Ballynahinch and after the rebels' overall defeat had been able to flee to France where he served with Napoléon's Irish Legion. It is said that he was captured by the British during the Walcheren Campaign of 1809, and though sent to England, was later able to return to France where in June 1815 he eventually died fighting, it is believed, at either Ligny or of Waterloo.
Read more about this topic: Henry Mc Mahon (diplomat)
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