Soloheadbeg ambush

The Soloheadbeg ambush took place on 21 January 1919, when members of the Irish Volunteers (soon to be called the Irish Republican Army or IRA), ambushed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officers who were escorting a consignment of gelignite explosives at Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary. Two RIC officers were killed and their weapons and the explosives were stolen. The Volunteers acted on their own initiative and had not sought authorisation for their action. As it happened on the same day that the revolutionary Irish parliament first met and declared Ireland's independence, it is often seen as the first engagement of the Irish War of Independence.