History Glossary

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Battalion
a military unit made up of three companies. Usually four battalions made up a brigade and at least three brigades were needed in a division. Several divisions fighting together created an army.

Battle of the Boyne
a decisive engagement fought near Drogheda on 1st July 1690. On the north side of the river William of Orange led a multi-national army (including Dutch Blue Guards and Danish troops) of 36,000 men to defeat James II commanding French royal troops and Irish Jacobites led by Patrick Sarsfield (a total of 26,000 men).

Battle of the Somme
a British and French offensive against the German lines on the Western Front which (after days of heavy bombardment) began on 1st July 1916. The 36th (Ulster) Division suffered 5,500 casualties on the first day but the battle continued to November 1916 with little achieved.

Auxiliaries
former British Army officers recruited as temporary recruits to the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1920-1. Brigadier General Frank Crozier resigned as their commander in February 1921 because these men were so badly disciplined.

Black and Tans
the popular name given to temporary recruits to the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1920-1. Recruited in Britain, these men wore a mixture of army khaki and RIC dark green – hence the name which was also the name of a Co. Limerick hunt. These men gained a reputation for unauthorised reprisals against IRA suspects.

Bloody Sunday
21st November 1920 when IRA men in Dublin killed 13 suspected of being British agents; British troops killed 3 IRA prisoners supposedly trying to escape; and Auxiliaries fired into a crowd at Croke Park, killing 12 people. Also applied to massacre in St Petersburg on 9th January 1905 and the shooting dead of 14 people in Derry on 30th January 1972 by British troops.

Boundary Commission
a commission of three men, Eoin MacNeill (for the Irish Free State), J R Fisher (for Northern Ireland) and Justice Richard Feetham of South Africa (for Britain), given the task of revising the frontier between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State as demanded by the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. After newspaper revelations, their report was suppressed in November 1925.

Breen, Dan
born in 1894, he began the War of Independence on 21st January 1919 when he killed a policeman at Soloheadbeg quarry in Co. Tipperary. He opposed the 1921 Treaty and was for long a Fianna Fáil TD. He wept openly when he heard news of the death of Hitler in 1945.

Brigade
a subdivision of an army commanded by a brigadier. For example, there were three brigades, together with Artillery, Royal Engineers, Signallers, Cyclists, Medical Corps staff and a Mobile Veterinary Section in the 36th (Ulster) Division.

Brugha, Cathal
born in 1874, he joined the Irish Volunteers, fought in the Easter Rising (where he was wounded) and became the Dáil minister of defence. He bitterly opposed the 1921 Treaty and was killed in the early stages of the Civil War in 1922.