#OnThisDay 1921 Thirty Kerry IRA men ambushed a train carrying 30 soldiers from the Royal Fusiliers at Headford train station. Despite a the British having a train mounted machine gun, the IRA killed 9 & wounded 12 but lost 2 themselves including their Commandant, Daniel Allman.
#OnThisDay 1918 The German military unleash 72 Divisions (over a million men) on the Western Front in their Spring Offensive. Outnumbered 6 to 1, the 16th (Irish) Division bear the brunt & lose 721 men in one day & are virtually wiped out by the Kaiserslacht. #Ireland #History #WW1
#OnThisDay 1920 Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomás Mac Curtain was shot dead in his house in front of his wife Eibhlís & his son by members of the RIC. Mac Curtain was Cork’s first Republican Lord Mayor & was Commandant of IRA Cork No.1 Brigade. It was his 36th birthday.
#OnThisDay 1914 Nearly 100 British Army officers offer their resignations in what became known as The Curragh Mutiny. This was in protest of the implementation of Home Rule & the possibility of ‘Marching on Ulster’ to enforce it. The British Government could not enforce Home Rule which had been passed through the House of Lords.
A Civil War between Unionists and Nationalists seemed likely.
#OnThisDay 1780 Miles Byrne was born in Monaseed, Wexford. Byrne fought at many battles during the 1798 Rebellion including leading a pike charge at Vinegar Hill. He then joined Michael Dwyer’s guerrillas in Wicklow & later joined in Emmet’s 1803 ill-fated rebellion. After all that he fought as an officer in Napoleon’s Irish Legion, eventually becoming a Brigadier General in the post Napoleonic French army.
It is possible that he was (and this is ) the first Irish man ever photographed.
The Irish at War 