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Lord Byron could not have hoped for a better omen in his support for the oppressed people of Greece.
George Gordon Byron, one of the greatest of all English romantic poets, died in 1824, aged just 36, in Missolonghi, Greece. Yet he played a key part in liberating Greece from almost four hundred years of oppression by the Ottoman Empire.
A headstrong Irish boy became part of the Greek resistance movement that won independence in 1832.
At sixteen, Richard Church (1784-1873) ran away from home in Cork and enlisted in the British Army. He made a name for himself liberating the Ionian Islands from Napoleon in 1809, and formed two new Greek regiments there in British pay. So when a favourite recruit wrote to him in 1826, pleading for help, he could hardly refuse.
During the Orlov Revolt of 1769, Greek islanders get their hands on a copy of Homer’s epic tale of Troy.
During the Greek Revolution of 1821-1829, against the Ottoman Empire, Irishman Edward Blaquière found his fund-raising in London hampered by doubts over whether today’s Greeks were worthy of their ancient forebears. Blaquiere showed them that the spirit of Achilles, wrathful hero of the Trojan War, lived on.
Manto Mavrogenous hoped that her fellow women might show more solidarity with Greece than many men had done.
On August 12th, 1824, Manto Mavrogenous wrote an open letter to the Ladies of England, soliciting donations to the cause of Greek independence from Ottoman rule. Above all, she needed funds to take Euboia, and make it into a safe island for children and women displaced by the fighting.
In 1822, a rich and beautiful young woman took the cause of Greek independence into her capable hands.
The Greek war of independence lasted from 1821 to 1827, and resulted in a partial liberation from the oppressive rule of the Ottoman Turks which had begun with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Manto Mavrogenous (1796-1848) was one of the struggle’s most romantic and most tragic figures.
Greek revolutionary Nikitarás gives his ungrateful men a sharp reminder of what really matters.
In 1821, Greeks living under the irksome rule of the Ottoman Empire declared independence, and a bitter struggle ensued which excited the sympathy of many in Britain, such as poet Lord Byron and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs George Canning. Irishman Richard Church (1784-1873) helped train many of the revolutionaries, among them Nikítas Stamatelópoulos (?1784-1849).
The British liberated the Ionian islands from Napoleon, then gave them fifty happy years and the game of cricket.
The Treaty of Paris in 1815 sought to settle the affairs of Napoleon Bonaparte, defeated at Waterloo and banished to the island of St Helena. Among the issues were the Ionian Islands (which include Zakynthos, Lefkada and Corfu) off the west coast of Greece.