|
Liam McMillen
William McMillen (19 May 1927 – 28 April 1975), aka Liam McMillen, was an Irish republican activist and an officer of the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was killed in 1975, in a feud with the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Early republican activity McMillen was born in Belfast in 1927 and joined the IRA at age 16 in 1943. During the IRA's Border Campaign (1956–62), he was interned and held in Crumlin Road jail. In 1964, he ran in the British general election as an Independent Republican candidate. When McMillen placed the Irish tricolour in the window of his election office in the lower Falls area, this sparked a riot between republicans, loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). There had been tensions on the issue since the government of Northern Ireland banned the flying of the tricolour under the Flags and Emblems Act. In October 1964, during the general election campaign, a photo of McMillen was placed i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dictionary Of Irish Biography
The ''Dictionary of Irish Biography'' (DIB) is a biographical dictionary of notable Irish people and people not born in the country who had notable careers in Ireland, including both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. History The work was supervised by a board of editors which included the historian Edith Johnston. It was published as a nine-volume set in 2009 by Cambridge University Press in collaboration with the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), and contained about 9,000 entries. The 2009 version of the dictionary was also published online via a digital subscription and was predominantly used by academics, researchers, and civil servants. An online version is now open access, having been launched on 17 March 2021 (St. Patrick's Day), and new entries are added to that version periodically. Funding is from the Higher Education Authority, Department of Foreign Affairs, and Dublin City Council Libraries. The biographies range from 200-15,000 words in length, with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish Tricolour
The national flag of Ireland (), frequently referred to in Ireland as 'the tricolour' () and elsewhere as the Irish tricolour, is a vertical tricolour of green (at the hoist), white and orange. The proportions of the flag are 1:2 (that is to say, flown horizontally, the flag is half as high as it is wide). Presented as a gift in 1848 to Thomas Francis Meagher from a small group of French women sympathetic to Irish nationalism,Sean Duffy, The Concise History of Ireland, 2005 it was intended to symbolise the inclusion and hoped-for union between Roman Catholics (symbolised by the green colour) and Protestants (symbolised by the orange colour). The significance of the colours outlined by Meagher was, ''"The white in the centre signifies a lasting truce between Orange and Green and I trust that beneath its folds the hands of Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics may be clasped in generous and heroic brotherhood"''. It was not until the Easter Rising of 1916, when it was raise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (; born Peter Roger Casement Brady; 2 October 1932 – 5 June 2013) was an Irish republican political and military leader. He was Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from 1958 to 1959 and again from 1960 to 1962, president of Sinn Féin from 1970 to 1983, and president of Republican Sinn Féin from 1987 to 2009. Early life Ó Brádaigh, born Peter Roger Casement Brady, was born into a middle-class republican family in Longford that lived in a duplex home on Battery Road. His father, Matt Brady, was an IRA volunteer who was severely wounded during an attack with the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1919. His mother, May Caffrey, was a Cumann na mBan volunteer and graduate of University College Dublin, class of 1922, with a degree in commerce. His maternal grandmother was a French-speaking Swiss Lutheran. His father died when he was ten, and was given a paramilitary funeral led by his former IRA colleagues. His mother, prominent as the Secretary for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unionism In Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is a political tradition that professes loyalty to the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, crown of the United Kingdom and to the union it represents with England, Scotland and Wales. The overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestantism in Ireland, Protestant minority, unionism mobilised in the decades following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to oppose restoration of a separate Parliament of Ireland, Irish parliament. Since Partition of Ireland, Partition in 1921, as Ulster unionism its goal has been to retain Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom and to resist the prospect of an United Ireland, all-Ireland republic. Within the framework of the Good Friday Agreement, 1998 Belfast Agreement, which concluded three decades of political violence, unionists have shared office with Irish nationalists in a reformed Northern Ireland Assembly. As of February 2024, they no longer do so as the larger faction: they serve in an executive with an Iri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Garland
Roy Garland is a newspaper columnist for the news publication ''Irish News'' and a member of the Ulster Unionist Party. Career In the 1960s, Garland became convinced that the Northern Ireland civil rights movement was a front for the IRA and Roman Catholic Church and that its activities would lead to the persecution of Protestants. As a result he got deeply involved in paramilitarism, Orangeism and Unionism. At that time one of the organisations Garland supported was Tara (Northern Ireland), Tara, a movement, led by William McGrath (loyalist), William McGrath, which espoused extreme anti-Catholic views. In the late 60s, he worked closely with the Ulster Volunteer Force (1966), UVF in an attempt the strengthen links between the two groups. Garland later became a prominent opponent of McGrath and helped expose his involvement in the Kincora Boys' Home scandal. Some years later, Garland had grave doubts about the direction in which the Orange Order and the Ulster Unionist Party ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfast Brigade
"Belfast Brigade" is an Irish folk song to the tune of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Context The song is about the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and in particular the 1st, or West Belfast battalion, during the Irish War of Independence in the 1920s. Reference is made to James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon, the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland who is accused of sending the 'Specials' or Ulster Special Constabulary, to 'shoot the people down'. This is a reference to the large number of Catholics who were killed by the Special Constabulary in the conflict. In Christy Moore's version, the lyrics in this verse are "the Black and Tans from London came to shoot the people down" Reference is also made to Seaforde Street in the Short Strand area of east Belfast, which was often the scene of armed encounters between the IRA, British forces and loyalist gunmen. Alternative versions of the song contain a reference to the Falls Road area instead of Seafo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Officer Commanding
The commanding officer (CO) or commander, or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitude to run the unit as they see fit, within the bounds of military law. In this respect, commanding officers have significant responsibilities (for example, the use of force, finances, equipment, the Geneva Conventions), duties (to higher authority, mission effectiveness, duty of care to personnel), and powers (for example, discipline and punishment of personnel within certain limits of military law). In some countries, commanding officers may be of any commissioned rank. Usually, there are more officers than command positions available, and time spent in command is generally a key aspect of promotion, so the role of commanding officer is highly valued. The commanding officer is often assisted by an executive officer (XO) o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy McKee
Billy McKee (; 12 November 1921 – 11 June 2019) was an Irish republican and a founding member and leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Early life McKee was born in Belfast on 12 November 1921, and joined Fianna Éireann in 1936. He was arrested following a raid on a GAA club in 1938, being imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol for several months. Following his release from prison, he joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1939. During the Second World War, the IRA carried out a number of armed actions in Northern Ireland known as the Northern Campaign. McKee was arrested and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol until 1946 for his role in this campaign. In 1956, the IRA embarked on another armed campaign against partition, known as the Border Campaign. McKee was again arrested and interned for the duration of the campaign. He was released in 1962. Upon release, he became Officer Commanding (OC) of the IRA's Belfast Brigade. However, he resigned this position in 1963, af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sten Gun
The STEN (or Sten gun) is a British submachine gun chambered in 9×19mm which was used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and during the Korean War. The Sten paired a simple design with a low production cost, facilitating mass production to meet the demand for submachine guns. As well as equipping regular units, the Sten was distributed to resistance groups within occupied Europe. Its simple design made it an effective insurgency weapon for resistance groups. The Sten is a select fire, blowback-operated weapon with a side-mounted magazine. Sten is an acronym, derived from the names of the weapon's chief designers: Major Reginald V. Shepherd and Harold J. Turpin, and "En" for the Enfield factory. Around four million Stens in various versions were made in the 1940s, making it the second most produced submachine gun of the Second World War, after the Soviet PPSh-41. The Sten served as the basis for the Sterling submachine gun, which repla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014) was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 to 2008. Paisley became a Protestant evangelical minister in 1946 and remained one for the rest of his life. In 1951 he co-founded the Reformed fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and was its leader until 2008. Paisley became known for his fiery sermons and regularly preached anti-Catholicism, anti-ecumenism and against homosexuality. He gained a large group of followers who were referred to as Paisleyites. Paisley became involved in Ulster unionist/loyalist politics in the late 1950s. In the mid-late 1960s he led and instigated loyalist opposition to the Catholic civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. This contributed to the outbreak of the Troubles in the late 1960s, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Starry Plough (flag)
The Starry Plough banner () is a flag which was originally used by the Irish Citizen Army, a Socialism, socialist Irish republican movement, and subsequently adopted by other Irish political organizations. Composition The original Starry Plough was designed by William H. Megahy, though the concept may have originated with George William Russell, for the Irish Citizen Army and showed silver stars on a green background. The flag depicts an asterism (astronomy), asterism (an identifiable part of a constellation) of the constellation Ursa Major, called ''The Plough'' (or "Starry Plough") in Ireland and Britain, the ''Big Dipper'' in North America, and various other names worldwide. Two of the Plough's seven stars point to Polaris, the North Star. James Connolly, co-founder of the Irish Citizen Army with Jack White (trade unionist), Jack White and James Larkin, said the significance of the banner was that a free Ireland would control its own destiny from the plough to the stars. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flags And Emblems Act
A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular) with distinctive colours and design. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design employed, and flags have evolved into a general tool for rudimentary signalling and identification, especially in environments where communication is challenging (such as the maritime environment, where semaphore is used). Many flags fall into groups of similar designs called flag families. The study of flags is known as "vexillology" from the Latin , meaning "flag" or "banner". National flags are patriotic symbols with widely varied interpretations that often include strong military associations because of their original and ongoing use for that purpose. Flags are also used in messaging, advertising, or for decorative purposes. Some military units are called "flags" after their use of flags. A ''flag'' (Arabic: ) is equivalent to a brigade in Arab countries. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
