#OnThisDay 1922 Cumann na mBan held a convention & voted 419 against to 63 for the Treaty. Countess Markievicz was elected President & the pro-Treaty members were asked to resign. They formed their own group called Cumann na Saoirse led by Jennie Wyse Power.
#OnThisDay 1921 Members of Michael Collins’ Squad assassinate L/Cpl John ‘Shankers’ Ryan in a pub on Gloucester Place in Dublin city centre. Ryan was responsible for the arrest of Dick McKee, Peadar Clancy & Conor Clune the night before Bloody Sunday. He had followed them to a house and marked the door with chalk as a signal to the Crown authorities. The three Irishmen were tortured and executed in Dublin Castle ‘while trying to escape’.
#Ireland #History
#OnThisDay 1820 Dr William Drennan passed away. Drennan was a doctor, specialising in obstetrics and a chief architect & co-founder of the United Irishmen. Drennan is also the first to refer to Ireland as the ‘Emerald Isle’ n his poem ‘When Erin first rose’. #Ireland #History
#OnThisDay 1921 Donnchadh O’Hannigan & the East & Mid Limerick IRA attacked a patrol of RIC & Black and Tans at Dromkeen killing 11. Nine RIC died during the ambush & two more in the days following. Two of the prisoners were executed after the surrender by Maurice Meade, a WW1 vet who fought for the British Army, was captured by the Germans, joined Casement’s ‘Irish Brigade’ and then joined the IRA. Arms & ammo were collected. Harsh British reprisals followed.
Donnchadh O’Hannigan is reported to have been the first man to implement flying columns which impressed Michael Collins who took the idea and made it nationwide.
#OnThisDay 1919 Michael Collins & Harry Boland masterminded a plan to break Eamon De Valera, the President of Dáil Éireann, out of Lincoln Jail with the age old trick, a key in a fruitcake. Three cakes were baked with keys inside, the first two keys did not work but the third cake, baked in Susan Talty’s house and delivered by her sister Kathleen had a blank key that that filed down to fit the locks. Two other Irish men, Sean Milroy & Sean McGarry (his wife, Tomasina baked and delivered the first cake which didn’t work) also escaped.
The Irish at War 