#OnThisDay 1693 At the Battle of Landen, Patrick Sarsfield, 1st Earl of Lucan & Jacobite hero of the Williamite War & was fatally wounded. He would die several days later. He has no known grave. His last words were reputedly:
“Oh that this was for Ireland”.
#OnThisDay 1922 Comdt. General Austin McCurtin & Comdt. Seán Collison were killed in an IRA ambush on the Abbeyleix to Maryborough (Portlaoise) road, Laois. Collison (below) was the commander of the North Tipperary Flying Column during the War of Independence.
#OnThisDay 1916 Second Lieutenant James Lytton Millar from Letterkenny, Donegal was KIA while serving with 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles. He had arrived at the front only six weeks before. Millar was studying medicine @QUBelfast before the war.
#OnThisDay 1689 The Siege of Derry ended when the Royal Navy ship ‘Mountjoy’ broke the boom across the River Foyle and was able to unload food & supplies to the city. The siege lasted 105 days. Knowing the siege had failed, the Jacobites left on August 1.
#OnThisDay 1960 The first Irish UN Peacekeeping troops left Ireland for the Congo. During the ONUC mission the Irish lost 9 men at Niemba but fought gallantly at Jadotville, 155 of them holding out for five days against thousands of enemy. This is just two of the most famous operations that the Irish were involved in. In total twenty six Irish lives were lost while serving on ONUC.
The Irish at War 