Monday, March 3, 2014

The River Lee, improvised armoured car

This huge beast was built In Cork city from a coal truck with  armour plate added, and named after the river that flows through the heart of the Munster republic armed with two Lewis guns, It has been described by eye witnesses as a labourer's cottage on wheels, it saw action at the Kilmallock & Cork battles.








4 comments:

  1. Got to get me one of them. Nice conversion.

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  2. Not to rain on your parade, but the photograph is NOT of the Republican improvised armoured car 'The River Lee' (I have yet to come across a photo of this A.F.V.) This photo is of one of the improvised armoured cars used by the British forces in Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising. Based on three-ton Daimler lorries on loan from the Guiness Brewery, 'armoured' bodies (available steel components) were applied at the facilities of the Great Southern and Western Railway at Inchicore. The first three were built using boilers / smokeboxes (the large cylindrical part of a locomotive). Multiple photos of these first three exist. The last two, however, as seen in this photo, were constructed using flat plates, producing a rectangular body. If you're interested, I can send you a copy of my article "The British Use of Armoured Vehicles during the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland." which appeared in the January-April, 2000 (Vol.35, No.1) issue of A.F.V. NEWS,

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