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Major Redmond Cunningham lands on Sword Beach DDAY 1944

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#OnThisDay 1944 Major Redmond Cunningham, an architect student in Trinity College, from Waterford landed on Sword beach in Normandy. He joined the Royal Engineers, believing
“It was the right thing to do. If Hitler was victorious, there would have been no Irish freedom of any kind.”
He cleared mines on the beach in his tanks, three of which were knocked out and the crews killed but he paved the way for Allied troops to Ouistreham. Not only did he clear his own path but he cleared the areas of beach that the knocked out tanks were meant to clear also. He received the Military Cross & Bar for his actions.

Cunningham DDay

The Manchester Band Boy Killings 1921

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#OnThisDay 1921 Bandboys John Cooper (pic), Charles Chapman & Matthew Carson of the Manchester Regiment Band were shot by the IRA in Cork. They 16, 17 & 18 respectively & the rank of ‘Boy”. They had left the Ballincollig barracks in uniform, were picked up by the IRA, taken across country to Ovens (where American Civil War Confederate General Patrick Cleburne was from) & shot. They were buried in the yard of an abandoned house. In August 1923, they were exhumed and reburied in Bandon workhouse grounds.

Again, their bodies exhumed in 1924 when Carson’s father, an Irishman who served for 20 years in the Royal Irish Rifles, finally got permission from the Irish Government to return their remains where they were buried in Ashton-under-Lyne.

1921-John-Robert-Cooper-face

The Scullabogue Massacre 1798

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#OnThisDay 1798 United Irishmen killed over 100 civilians, most but not all, are Protestants at Scullabogue, Wexford. The guards were also both Catholic and Protestant. Rounding up of pro-government people in an area was not unheard of (and still existed into the 20th century in various conflicts-rounding up people suspected of sympathising or supporting the enemy). This was in revenge of the failed rebel attack on New Ross & for the government forces killing wounded prisoners (70 in Mary St).

At first, male prisoners were taken out in groups of four and shot but once rebels returned from New Ross, the guards in charge of the prisoners could not hold them back any longer. This atrocity has long stained the 1798 Rebellion as a purely sectarian conflict but it is more complex than that.

Scullabogue Barn massacre, artwork

 

 

The Battle of Benburb 1646

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#OnThisDay 1646 Eoghan Ruadh Ó’Néill and his army of 5000 defeated a slightly larger Scottish Covenanter army under Robert Munro at the Battle of Benburb in Tyrone during the War of the Three Kingdoms. Ó’Néill was the nephew of Hugh O’Neill of The Nine Years’ War fame. Munro stated the battle tactically well, first with artillery fire and then a cavalry charge but neither broke the Confederates nor caused many casualties. A final pike charge by the Irish, whose pikes were longer and had smaller heads which were better for piercing armour, caused the Scots to break & run, killing between 2000-3000. This ended Scottish hopes of conquering Ireland and imposing their own religious settlement there.
Eoghan Ruagh O'Neill