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Kathleen Clarke, Irish Nationalist, born 1878

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#OnThisDay 1878 Kathleen Clarke, founding member of Cumann na mBan, politician & first female Lord Mayor of Dublin, was born in Limerick. Clarke spent 11 months in prison for the “German Plot” & served as a Republican judge during the War of Independence.

Clarke had lost both her husband (Tom) and brother (Ned Daly) in the executions after the Easter Rising. She was pregnant at the time while visiting and lost her child.

She also set up the Irish National Aid Fund to aid those who had family members killed or imprisoned as a result of the Easter Rising. Clarke was vital to Michael Collins in his quest to rebuild the IRB and the Volunteers after the Rising as she had the rolls of the companies.

Of Pearse, she said, he “wanted to grab what was due to others . . . surely Pearse should have been satisfied with the honour of Commander-in-Chief when he knew as much about commanding as my dog . . . I had not intended raising the issue in public but I shall be forced to come out very strongly in public if the powers that be attempt to declare Pearse as President”.
In a taped interview made in 1968 she stated that Roger Casement was “… the aristocratic kind and he assumed that when he went into any movement, ipso facto, he was one of our leaders, if not the leader . . . and what could he know of Ireland, when he was all the time out of it.”

Kathleen passed away in Liverpool in 1972, received a state funeral and was buried in Deans Grange Cemetery in Dublin.

Kathleen Clarke

Hugh McGinnis, Wounded Knee Massacre Trooper born in Co. Down 1870

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#OnThisDay 1870 Hugh McGinnis was born in Co.Down. The last survivor of 7th Cavalry, present at the Wounded Knee Massacre. “Soldiers of the 7th cavalry massacred in cold blood Indian men, women & children. I still awake from nightmarish dreams of that massacre.”
Hugh McGinnis
McGinnis continued, “The pitiful wailing cries of babies & children mixed with the dull explosions of the old fashioned Hotchkiss machine guns rent the cold air.  The sickening thuds as these big lead bullets smashed into the body of a baby or a child, arms & head all flying in different directions.’
Wounded Knee
Hugh said, “The screams of mothers as machine gun bullets tore their bodies apart.  The curses of the ‘Indian’ warriors, fighting machine guns and cannons with old muskets, knives, and tomahawks, being cut down in rows by demon-crazed white soldiers.” A dark part of our history.
Big Foot

Two young Irish sailors perish aboard SS Empire Prairie when sunk by German sub 1942

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#OnThisDay 1942 Assistant Cook Thomas FitzGerald, 17, from Kilkenny & Sailor Robert Rankin, 21, from Dublin perished along with all 49 crew of the Merchant Navy ship SS Empire Prairie when it was sank by the German sub U-654 500 miles north east of Bermuda. The ship, en route from Halifax to South Africa, was hit with one of two torpedoes and broke in half. Some crew survived the initial blast but died in the frigid Atlantic waters.

NAzy U-Boat

 

Liam Lynch, Anti-Treaty IRA Chief of Staff is killed during Irish Civil War 1923

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#OnThisDay 1923 IRA Chief of Staff during the Civil War, Liam Lynch is shot in Tipperary by Free State Forces. Lynch had just voted against a peace deal days earlier. Rumours still circulate that Lynch was shot by his own men who didn’t share his diehard beliefs. These rumours are most likely untrue.
His death effectively ended the war. 20 days later, a ceasefire was called for by Frank Aiken.

Liam LYnch