The French Revolution (1789)

The storming of the Bastille was lead by an Irishman James Bartholomew Blackwell
James Bartholomew Blackwell born in Ennis Co Clare Ireland in 1763, a mercenary and French Army officer serving the First French Republic and later under Napoleon
Before the outbreak of the Revolution, James Bartholomew Blackwell had associated himself with the reform party, becoming an intimate friend of leading spirits of the clubs who helped to precipitate the insurrection of the fourteenth of July 1789.

The Bastille, a state prison, containing a sizable quantity of ammunition, including 250 barrels of powder, too, posed an irresistible temptation for the militant minded of the revolutionaries. In the popular mind, the Bastille was conceived as a symbol of royal despotism, a disgrace to any nation.
Paris revolutionaries chose James Bartholomew Blackwell as their leader for the attack on the Bastille. When the attackers reached the Bastille that morning this contingent was the first to move against the formidable fortress with its 30 meter high walls, its turrets and its mounted cannon. The taking of the Bastille constituted the first great journée of the French Revolution, marking the collapse of absolute monarchy.
It resulted in 98 killed, including the governor, 73 wounded, seven freed and several unemployed.” James Bartholomew Blackwell’s name however, is absent from the official list of heroes, les vainqueurs de la Bastille consisting of 863 other signatures

Blackwell went to France originally to become a priest. At that time Catholicism in Ireland was .subdued by the British rulers .After a few years he gave up his priesthood studies He then joined the French army.