#OnThisDay 1789 Parisians attacked the Bastille. Joseph Cavanagh from Carlow, commandeered 6 gun-laden wagons en route to the French Army’s camp at Metz & rode them through the streets of Paris crying “Men, seize the Bastille, seize the Bastille.”
Major General Maureen O’Brien, from Galway, joined the Irish Army in 1981 & was the first woman to reach the rank of General. She served in Chad, Lebanon, East Timor & more. Currently O’Brien is a Deputy Military Advisor in the Office of Military Affairs with the UN.
Máire Comerford, from Wexford (centre). During the Civil War Comerford was shot at by Free State soldiers but escaped on her motorbike. Later she was arrested & imprisoned for trying to kidnap Taoiseach W.T Cosgrave. She escaped but was recaptured & shot in the leg.
Mary Ann McCracken, from Belfast was way ahead of her time. A lifelong activist, Mary was in the United Irishmen, cared for the city’s poor, was an abolitionist & refrained from buying goods that were handled in anyway by slaves. She lived her life by the saying
“Better to wear out than to rust out”.
#OnThisDay 1921 A truce came into effect ending all hostilities between the IRA & Crown Forces in Ireland. However the truce did not end all killings, especially in Belfast where the violence got worse. Within a year Civil War had broken out in the Free State.
The Irish at War 