George Lennon Born: IRA Leader Shapes Modern Ireland
George Lennon was born into a family that ran a bicycle shop in Clonmel, County Tipperary—the kind of place where you learned how to fix things and, later, how to make them explode. He joined the IRA at seventeen, commanded flying columns that ambushed British forces across Tipperary, then fought on the anti-Treaty side when former comrades became enemies. Survived both wars. Lived another seventy years after the Civil War ended, dying in 1991 at ninety-one. The bicycle mechanic's son outlasted the Free State, the Republic, and most men who'd tried to kill him.
May 25, 1900
126 years ago
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