1. Christopher "Kit" Poole was an Irish soldier and military tactician who fought in the Tirah Campaign and the Second Boer War as a British Army private, as well as a captain of the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising.
12 Facts About Kit Poole
1. 2.
Kit Poole was a pivotal figure during the 1916 Easter Rising, as second-in-command at St Stephen's Green under Citizen Army commandant Michael Mallin where they held out for six days against British forces, ending the engagement when the British brought them a copy of Pearse's surrender order.
3.
Christopher Damian Poole was born on Capel Street in Dublin, the second of six children to parents Frederick Poole, a tailor, and Mary Jane Madden, a housewife.
4.
Kit Poole grew up in a nationalist environment; Joseph Kit Poole, his older brother and member of the Fenian Brotherhood, was executed in 1883 for a murder which he did not commit.
5.
Kit Poole enlisted with the British army at the age of 18 and was assigned to the 2nd East Yorkshire Regiment alongside his future commandant, Michael Mallin.
6.
Kit Poole served for a period in South Africa, earning the Queen's South Africa Medal and two King's South Africa Medal clasps for his service during the Boer War, after which he retired from British Military Service.
7.
Six years after returning to Ireland, Kit Poole was elected to the founding provisional committee of the Irish Citizen Army alongside Jack White, Constance Markievicz and Jim Larkin.
8.
Kit Poole owned the only Lee Enfield rifle in possession of the army at its inception, and would go on to train enlistees how to carry weapons prior to entering battle.
9.
Kit Poole formed an important part of the honour guard during the iconic raising of the harped flag over Liberty Hall in the run up to Easter 1916, escorting Molly O'Reilly, colour bearer and representative of Women's Worker's Union, and a colour guard of 16 men as they made their way to raise the flag.
10.
Meanwhile, Kit Poole ordered a number of men to dig slit trenches and foxholes in the style he had used prior in South Africa.
11.
When it came to evacuating the park due to heavy fire Kit Poole mustered remaining men at the Park entrance, sending them in separate sections at regular intervals out the West gate towards the college.
12.
Kit Poole was released under the general amnesty of Christmas 1916.