#OnThisDay 1916 The first prisoners of the Easter Rising arrived in Frongoch Prison in Wales. 1,800 men were held there including Michael Collins. Lessons on Irish language, history & military tactics gave Frongoch the name of the “University of Revolution”
#OnThisDay 1862 At the Battle of Port Republic, Irishmen of the 6th Louisiana Infantry attacked Union guns, captured them & turned them on the Union Army. This helped win the battle. The Union was led by Tyrone man James Shields (though he wasn’t on the field).
#OnThisDay 1798 United Irishmen defeated a Crown force at the Battle of Saintfields, Down pushing the Crown back to Comber. One of the UI leaders was Thomas Birch whose brother, George, was commander of the Newtownards Yeomanry. George’s two sons were also UI.
Countess Mary O’Kelly de Galway (nee Cummins), from Dublin, was in the Belgian Resistance, smuggling arms, carrying messages & more. Mary was arrested by the Gestapo, tortured & scheduled for extermination in Auschwitz but her train was derailed.She survived the war.
Margaret Kelly,a Dubliner & founder of the BlueBell Girls dance troupe, lived in Paris in 1940. She kept her Jewish husband safe, hiding him across the road from police station in Paris &was often interrogated by the Gestapo, denying knowledge of his whereabouts, while pregnant.
The Irish at War 