The Company of St Barbara

[anteros_lmc]

I've done a bit of digging to see what I could find out about the mysterious Amazonian Company of St Barbara that so impressed Cuddy. It appears that the company were a brigade of Irish women, commanded by Lucy Fitzgerald, who fought at the Third Siege of Girona during the Peninsular War from 1808 - 1809. At the start of the siege the town was

Comments

[latin_cat]

Brilliant. Can I ask what your sources were for this, besides the diary? *is getting all Academic and thinking about Third year*

[anteros_lmc]

Ooh this could be a fascinating topic for a dissertation! I managed to find quite a lot of material on google books and archive.org. There's a lot written on the siege of Girona and also on the the Irish brigades and diaspora (the wild geese). I suspect though that if you did a bit more research you might find that most of the literature quotes the same sources. There's still a fair bit out there though. Here's one example The Wandering Irish In Europe. I also found a reference to a Maria Angela Bibern who led the company with Lucy Fitzgerald. How's your Spanish? I suspect if you could access the Spanish sources you'd find a lot more material. If the source quoted above is correct, Lucy's despatches survive in the Spanish archives. Let me know if you decide to follow this up! :)