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5 unusual facts about Paddy Daly


Paddy Daly

On 19 December 1919, Daly along with Dan Breen led an abortive ambush, at Ashtown railway station near the Phoenix Park, on the British Viceroy, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Supreme Commander of the British Army in Ireland, Lord French, as he returned from a private party which he had hosted the previous evening at his country residence in Frenchpark, County Roscommon.

They later abandoned the armoured car after removing the Hotchkiss machine guns and setting fire to what they could.

Daly himself personally killed several people, including Frank Brooke, director of Great Southern and Eastern Railway, who served on an advisory council to the British military, in June 1920.

Towards the end of the war, in May 1921, the two principal fighting units of the IRA's Dublin Brigade, the "Squad" and the "Active Service Unit" were amalgamated after losses suffered in the Burning of the Custom House.

In the aftermath he was arrested and interned in Ballykinlar Camp in County Down.



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