Mutiny
Published in UncategorizedHowever acceptable punitive raids may have been in the Middle East, analogous actions in post-war Ireland did not impress some Connaught Ranger veterans of the Mesopotamia campaign. Impelled by the British counter-insurgency campaign in Ireland, elements of the 1st Connaught Rangers mutinied in June 1920. The rebels struck the Union flag at their outpost on the North-West Frontier of India and replaced it with an Irish tricolour. An attempt to storm the battalion armoury failed (two mutineers, Pte Patrick Smythe and Pte Peter Sears, died in the process), however, while a majority of the troops remained loyal to their officers. The subsequent courts martial led to long prison sentences for the perpetrators, and the execution of Pte James Daly of Tyrellspass, Co. Westmeath. In recognition of the mutiny, the Irish government passed the Connaught Rangers (Pensions) Act in 1936, which gave the mutineers the same pecuniary rights as veterans of the Irish Revolution.
