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4 unusual facts about Irish Volunteers


Ballylifford

He was a member of the Irish Volunteers and later the 3rd Western Division Flying Column of the Irish Republican Army.

Seán Larkin was a member of the Irish Volunteers and hunger striker from Bellagherty, a townland of Ballinderry less than 1 km from Ballylifford.

Irish Volunteers

As the Volunteers marched from Howth back to Dublin, however, they were met by a large patrol of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and the British Army.

Redmond, in the interest of ensuring the enactment of the Home Rule Act 1914 then on the statute books, encouraged the Volunteers to support the British and Allied war commitment and join Irish regiments of the British New Army divisions, an action unsuccessfully opposed by the founding members.


Eoin MacNeill

Bulmer Hobson, a member of the IRB, approached MacNeill about bringing this idea to fruition, and, through a series of meetings, MacNeill became chairman of the council that formed the Irish Volunteers, later becoming its chief of staff.

Maire Comerford

Supporting the IRA in the Dublin area during the Irish War of Independence, she also helped to run the Irish White Cross, led by the Quaker James Douglas, which aimed to assist civilian war victims by raising money in the United States.

Protestant Ascendancy

The formation of the Irish Volunteers to defend Ireland from French invasion during the American Revolution effectively gave Grattan a military force, and he was able to force Britain to concede a greater amount of self-rule to the Ascendancy.

Soloheadbeg Ambush

On that same day, an ambush was carried out by Irish Volunteers Seán Treacy, Dan Breen, Seán Hogan, Séamus Robinson, Tadhg Crowe, Paddy McCormack, Paddy O'Dwyer, Michael Ryan and Seán O'Meara (the latter two being cycle scouts).


see also

1892 in Ireland

20 October - Eoin O'Duffy, first leader of Fine Gael and the Blueshirts, leader of Irish volunteers on the Nationalist side of the Spanish Civil War (died 1944).

Charles Carrigan

In January 1916, Carrigan and fellow IRB members from Glasgow travelled to Dublin along with members of Na Fianna and Cumann na mBan and formed the Scottish Division of the Irish Volunteers and were based at the home of Count Plunkett in Kimmage, County Dublin where they prepared for an insurrection against British Rule in Ireland.

Republican Army

Irish Republican Army, a military organisation descended from the Irish Volunteers