#OnThisDay 1900 US Marine Martin Hunt, from Mayo, ‘In the presence of the enemy during the battle of Peking (during the Boxer Rebellion in China), Hunt distinguished himself by meritorious conduct’. Hunt was later awarded the Medal of Honor in 1901.
#OnThisDay 1803 An explosion in an arms factory rang out in Dublin. These weapons were intended for Robert Emmet’s rebellion, planned for late August & with French aid. This explosion threw a spanner in the works &brought the date of the uprising to July 23rd.
#OnThisDay 1618 Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare was murdered as he left a church in Madrid by Dubliner John Bathe. O’Sullivan, the last of the O’Sullivan Beares in the Beara Peninsula, had fought the English during the Nine Year’s War. Bathe was later knighted.
#OnThisDay 1798 John and Henry Sheares were hanged, drawn and quartered at Newgate Prison, Dublin. The brothers were lawyers from Cork had joined the United Irishmen in 1793. John was to lead the 1798 Rebellion but was arrested before he could take action.
#OnThisDay 1789 Dublin man James F.X. Whyte, Count of Malleville was 1 of the 7 prisoners freed from the Bastille. An officer in the Irish Brigade, Whyte was imprisoned in 1781 due to ‘insanity’. He was paraded through Paris & put in an insane asylum the 15th.
The Irish at War 