St Patrick’s Battalion Hanged

In Mexico the 12th of September commemorates the mass hanging of the members of Saint Patrick’s Battalion, which consisted largely of Irish and other deserters from the American army who had then joined with the Mexicans in the the war between the two countries.

I think of them and can see how easy it might have been for my ancestors to have been caught up in the whole sorry mess, had they immigrated just a few decades earlier than they did…

A difficult footnote marking difficult times…