#OnThisDay 1882 Eamon De Valera was born in New York City. De Valera was a Commandant during the Easter Rising, avoided execution by timing & luck, was Anti-Treaty, founder of @fiannafailparty, Taoiseach for decades & two term Irish President.
#OnThisDay 1318 Edward Bruce was killed at the Battle of Faughart, Louth by an Irish-Norman army. His body quartered, his head salted & sent to England. Bruce, a descendant of Aoife MacMurrough, was declared by some Irish kings to be the High King of Ireland.
#OnThisDay 1920 Dan Breen & Seán Treacy shoot their way out of a police/army raid on the house they were staying at in Drumcondra, Dublin killing two British officers. Breen was shot 4 times & was taken to the Mater hospital. Treacy was not seriously wounded.
#OnThisDay 1899 The Second Anglo-Boer War began. At least 30,000 Irishmen would serve there in 13 infantry regiments & 3 cavalry units within the British Army. Another 300 Irishmen, like John MacBride, would fight with the Boers against the British.
#OnThisDay 1860 Michael Corcoran, Colonel of the New York 69th Militia, refused to parade his unit during a visit from the Prince of Wales in protest of British rule in Ireland. Corcoran was removed, court-martialed but reinstated when the Civil War began.
The Irish at War 