#OnThisDay 1921 Tom Barry test fired the first Thompson submachine guns (Tommy Guns) for Michael Collins & Richard Mulcahy in Marino. 653 machine guns were ordered initially and these three guns were the first of over 150 to make it to Ireland but the rest were delivered after the Truce. The IRA were the first to use the Thompson Gun in action, firing on a train of British soldiers from Drumcondra Station.
The vast majority, (495) of the Tommy Guns were impounded in the States. Some of these guns were to find their way to Chicago where it became synonymous with the crime gangs and mafias there and received the nickname the ‘Chicago Typewriter’. The US Marines & Army then adopted this weapon for service in WW2.
The Irish at War 