#OnThisDay 1803 Michael Dwyer, who evaded British authorities since 1798 finally surrendered after virtually his entire family was arrested. He was granted free passage to America but the Gov reneged & Dwyer was interred in Kilmainham Gaol& exiled to Australia.
#OnThisDay 1955 Grace Gifford passed away. A member of the Sinn Fein Executive & an Anti-Treaty supporter who used her skills as a cartoonist to promote Sinn Fein. Arrested in February 1923, she drew the Madonna & Child painting in her cell in Kilmainham Gaol.
#OnThisDay 1867 The Fenians attempted a jail break what became known as ‘The Clerkenwell Explosion’. A barrel of gunpowder was detonated outside the prison wall & killed 6 bystanders, injured 120, destroyed nearby homes & did not rescue the intended prisoner.
#OnThisDay 1862 The Irish Brigade charged the Confederate Army in a frontal attack at Marye’s Heights at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Of the 1,200 that started the attack, 545 men were killed, wounded or missing, all shot down by an Irish unit from Georgia.
#OnThisDay 1920 Dr Daniel Cohalan, Bishop of Cork, issued a decree saying that anyone, “within the diocese of Cork who organises or takes part in ambushes or murder or attempted murder shall be excommunicated”. Cork City centre was still burning.
The Irish at War 