#OnThisDay 1942 The first of 300,000 US troops arrive in to the Belfast docks, who will prepare to fight in North Africa and Normandy. There are so many that they make up 1/10 of the population. The US Rangers were formed in Carrickfergus.
#OnThisDay 1923 Three men were executed in Birr Castle. The men had robbed some farmers at gunpoint. They were executed as IRA Volunteers but the IRA had refused them membership because they were too young.
Colum Kelly 18
William Conroy 20
Patrick Cunningham 22
#OnThisDay 1923 An IRA mine was detonated under a Free State armoured car outside of Terenure College, Dublin. Three soldiers were badly injured, the driver blown 30 yards away & another had his mouth blown away by the blast. Three civilians were also injured.
#OnThisDay 1799 Thomas Charles Wright, the father of the Ecuadorian Navy was born in Drogheda, Louth. Wright served in the Royal Navy, then joined Simon Bolivar’s army & fought for Ecuador’s and many other South American countries’ independence from Spain.
#OnThisDay 1316 Edward Bruce, descendant of Aoife McMurrogh & the nominal ‘High King of Ireland’ defeated the Anglo-Irish army of the Justiciar of Ireland Edmund Butler at the Battle of Skerries, Kildare. This was part of the Scottish Wars of Independence.
The Irish at War 