Not long after Charlie Brennan fought at Gallipoli and the Somme, his teenage brother Francis (also known as “Terry”) joined the IRA. But by 1922, he was fighting on the Anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, as part of a briefly notorious unit called the “Leixlip Flying Column”. I’m indebted to Christopher Lee – a historian and Brennan relative – for his account of the event: “The Last Stand of the Leixlip Flying Column”. Clean fight or not, five members of the flying column were duly executed for treason. And the other members of the flying column, including Francis Brennan, might have gone the same way.

Source: The Irish Times September 21, 2018 17:26 UTC