Quote from Steve on July 3, 2020, 10:42 am

The postcard below from Jo'burg, ZAR, posted on 3rd April 1900 to Prague shows the W E Burmester & Co. shop in Commissioner Street. I believe the men parading past are Irishmen displaying their loyalty to the ZAR by rubbing Uitlander noses, particularly English ones, in the humiliation of the failure of the Jameson Raid of 1895/6, an act of corporate, capitalist, imperialist piracy conducted with a nod and a wink from the Colonial Office in London. These marching men would form the nucleous of the 'Irish Brigade' of volunteers who fought for the ZAR under the American Colonel John Blake and the Irishman Major John MacBride, executed in Kilmarnock Gaol, Dublin, by firing squad in 1916 for his part in the Dublin Uprising. MacBride is almost certainly among the postcard's marching men. While I am on the subject of Irishmen in the South African War, it is worth mentioning that when the Battle of Colenso was won, General Louis Botha sent out his brother-in-law, J Cheere Emmet, to bring in the British guns. Emmet was a distant relation of the Irish patriot Robert Emmet, hung and beheaded in 1803. I have always thought this acknowledgement of the Irish struggle for justice and freedom was a generous historical touch by Botha, one which added to a great Boer victory.