#OnThisDay 1922 Reginald Dunne (Left) & Joe O’Sullivan (Right), both #WW1 veterans & IRA members, were hanged in Wandsworth Prison for the murder of Chief of the Imperial General Staff of the British Army, Sir Henry Wilson. Wilson was blamed for pogroms against Nationalists in Ulster.
O’Sullivan had lost half his leg in the fighting at Ypres. It was this injury that kept them from making good their escape after they shot Wilson outside his home.
Some believe that Collins ordered the assassination but this is unlikely. Others believe Wilson’s death forced pressure of Michael Collins to use military force to remove the Anti-Treaty Republicans out of the Four Courts in Dublin.
The Irish at War 