#OTD On This Day – Howth Gun Running
#OTD 1913 a shipment of 1500 Mauser rifles arrived in Howth harbour transported from Hamburg, Germany via ‘the Asgard’ – Erskine Childers private yacht. The rifles were to be used in the Easter Rising.
Upon docking, the Asgard was met by members of Fianna Éireann, led by Countess Markievicz, ready with hand carts and wheelbarrows to unload the cargo. Occurring in broad daylight the event drew the attention of a large crowd of onlookers and eventually British state forces.
Volunteers clashed with police before the arrival of the British Army, however the majority of the guns had been successfully smuggled away from the docks and hidden before the arrival of British troops.
The crowd of onlookers having observed the police and British Army fail to seize the guns, began to heckle and jeer at them. The response of the British soldiers was to fire into the crowd, and bayonet one man to death. Four people were killed – this was to be known as the Bachelors Walk Massacre.
