Posts Tagged ‘London Irish Rifles’
Conference hears Irish Brigade Italy campaign stories
Enniskillen Castle Stories of members of the Irish Brigade in the Italian campaign were told at the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (The Skins) in the Italian campaign conference in Enniskillen on Saturday 11 November. The event was opened by Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Mark Scott chairman of the Inniskillings Museum which hosted the conference. His father Robert…
Read MoreTermoli plans monument, museum and documentary to commemorate the landings of 1943
Plans are being developed for a new memorial and a larger Second World War Museum in Termoli and a documentary film to commemorate the landings and battle there on 3-6 October 1943. The town and the surrounding area were the scene of the largest tank battle in the Italian campaign in the Second World War…
Read MoreMinneapolis family heads to Sicily for WWII commemoration
Marian Johnson (right) with daughter Hayley and grandson Owen Three generations of an Edina family are heading to Sicily next month to join the commemoration of Allied landings on the island, which took place at a turning point in the Second World War, 80 years ago. Mother of five, Marian Johnson, will be joined on…
Read MoreRemembering the dead of the Sicily campaign
The CWGC Catania War Cemetery, the largest in Sicily, has 2,135 graves The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries in Catania and Syracuse contain the remains of 2,410 men who lost their lives between the start of the Sicilian campaign on the night of 9 July and the end of August 1943. The overwhelming majority…
Read MoreMaletto memorial for the men who died in the Irish Brigade’s final Sicily battle
A memorial to men of the Irish Brigade who lost their lives in and around Maletto in north-east Sicily in August 1943 in the brigade’s final battle on the island was formally unveiled on 18 September 2022. Those listed on the memorial are 18 members of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers (Faughs)…
Read MoreNew memorials unveiled in Sicily
A pilgrimage organised by the London Irish Rifles returned from Sicily at the end of September after visiting locations where 38 (Irish) Brigade and 168 (London) Brigade fought during July and August 1943. At that time, the Irish Brigade comprised the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers (The Faughs); the 6th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (The…
Read MorePiper Albert Jeffrey at the Vatican
Excerpt of The Wartime Memoirs of Albert “Jeff” Jeffrey. The 2 LIR’s visit to the Pope in June 1944 is well documented but nothing has been written of the Band’s performance. On arriving we did the usual trick of counter-marching on arrival at any church, so as to be facing the following marchers who then…
Read MoreSergeant Thomas Renshaw
We have recently been contacted by the grandson of Sergeant Thomas Renshaw, who served with both the Royal Irish Fusiliers and the London Irish Rifles during the Second World War. In his note to us, Darren Russell explained that his grandfather had served with the 2nd Battalion London Irish Rifles throughout the Tunisian campaign but…
Read MoreMajor Colin Gibbs MC- Lionhearted London Irish Company Commander
The Irish Brigade website was delighted to join together recently with Michael Gibbs and Charles Ward to remember the time when Michael’s father, Captain (later Major) Gibbs, witnessed the attestations of Charles and Edmund O’Sullivan, both 20 years old, when they joined up with the 2nd Battalion, London Irish Rifles (2 LIR) on 18th October…
Read MoreSergeant Edward Charles Mayo MM: champion recruit and natural leader
Edward (Eddie) Mayo, who worked at Ford in Dagenham before the Second World War, was conscripted into the 2nd Battalion, London Irish Rifles (2 LIR) on 18th October 1939 and quickly emerged as one of the the battalion’s star recruits. Eddie Mayo and Mary Gibbs on their wedding day During the extended period that the battalion…
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