Alejandro ‘Bloody O’Reilly’: A Military Might
In the context of religious and territorial wars of past centuries, the exploits of Irish soldiers and officers are well chronicled by military and other historians. As professional soldiers they preferred to put their swords at the disposal of different European monarchs rather than fight for the colonisers who had overrun their country. They fought for the French, Austrian, Prussian, Spanish, Italian and Russian armies and others too. Irishmen or their descendants became influential figures in many countries achieving…
