#OnThisDay 1941 Belfast was first deliberately bombed by Nazi Germany dropping high explosive, incendiary & parachute mines on the east of the city which killed 13 people & damaging the ship yards and the docks. This was the first of four of raids that became known as the Belfast Blitz.
#OnThisDay 1926 The Honourable Violet Albina Gibson, from Dublin, shot Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini twice in the face after he had given a speech in Rome about modern medicine. Both bullets passed through his nose & her third shot misfired. He declared it ‘a mere trifle’. The Italian police had to stop the fascist mob from beating Violet.
This assassination attempt was not a political, anti-fascist gesture however, Violet was having a psychotic episode and was convinced that she needed to kill someone to prove her love to God. She had also tried to kill herself previously for the same reason.
Deported to the UK, she lived out her days in a psychiatric hospital. Her story became known to the public because James Joyce’s daughter Lucia was in the same hospital too. Violent tried to take her own life again in 1930 but survived. She passed away from a fever in 1951. Nobody attended her funeral.
#OnThisDay 1865 Brigadier General Tom Smyth from Ballyhooly Cork, was shot in the mouth by a sniper, shattering his cervical vertebra. He had been at the front of his troops when the Confederate marksman hit him. He died two days later just as the war ended when the Confederate Commander General Lee surrendered in the Appomattox Court House. Smyth was the last General to die in the American Civil War.
#OnThisDay 1776 Wexford man & Father of the @USNavy (a moniker he shares with the Scotch man John Jones), Captain John Barry aboard his ship the USS Lexington, captured the British sloop HMS Edward after a fierce battle. Barry then hauled his prize into Philadelphia & got the Lexington refitted & back out to sea.
#OnThisDay 1919 The first IRA Volunteer to die in the War of Independence, Captain Robert Byrne was fatally wounded during a rescue mission launched by the Limerick IRA to free him from RIC custody in a hospital. He was shot by RIC Constable Spillane who, upon seeing the furore, lay across Byrne’s body, pulled his gun and shot his twice in the chest. One RIC Constable, Constable O’Brien was shot dead and Spillane was also shot.
#OnThisDay 1916 Pte Randolph Churchill Bestall Campbell from Ballynahinch, Co. Down was killed in action when his unit, the 14th Bn Royal Irish Rifles held the front line. Campbell was around 21.
#OnThisDay 1858 Pte Patrick Carlin from Belfast, was awarded the Victoria Cross during the Indian Rebellion (more commonly known as the Indian Mutiny) for saving the life of a wounded soldier & using the soldier’s sword to kill an enemy who had fired on them.
