British Army

Hey! Aspiring film school drones! Would you like to win a Golden Globe award? It's within your reach, as long as you can write dreary scenes like these, from the PBS hit show "Downton Abbey": BATES, the basset hound of British valets, to his on-again, off-again girlfriend: "I don't know if I've dreaded this moment or longed for it. " The possibly virginal ANNA: "Well, either way, it's happened. " Wait, it gets worse. ANNA: "If you want me to throw up everything and come - yes, I will, gladly.

DUBLIN - The outlawed Irish Republican Army apologized yesterday for its 1973 killing of a 9-year-old Northern Ireland boy who stumbled across an IRA bomb while playing in his backyard. The declaration was a major shift, since for decades the group had blamed the boy's death on the British Army. The IRA made its admission and apology for killing Gordon Gallagher after the dead boy's parents called publicly for Sinn Fein politician Martin McGuinness, the former IRA commander in Londonderry, to tell them who planted a bomb in their children's play area and why. The IRA said the...

By Sara Brown, Town Correspondent On this day 236 years ago, Charlestown was the site of one of the pivotal battles of the Revolutionary War, as the colonial army inflicted surprising damage on the stronger, larger British army at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Bunker Hill Monument commemorating the battle -- which actually took place at nearby Breed's Hill -- was fairly quiet on this rainy anniversary of the battle, with visitors saying the Charlestown monument was another stop on their historical tour of Boston or part of their daily routine.

► Today is Sunday, Feb. 19, the 50th day of 2012. There are 316 days left in the year. ► Today's birthdays: Singer Smokey Robinson is 72. Singer Bobby Rogers (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles) is 72. Actress Carlin Glynn is 72. Sony chief executive Howard Stringer is 70. Singer Lou Christie is 69. Actor Michael Nader is 67. Rock musician Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell) is 64. Actor Stephen Nichols is 61. Author Amy Tan is 60. Actor Jeff Daniels is 57. Rock singer-musician Dave Wakeling is 56. Talk show host Lorianne Crook is 55. Actor Ray Winstone is 55. Actor Leslie David Baker (TV: "The Office")

Britain's military says a soldier was mistakenly sent to fight on the front line in Afghanistan while he was still just 17 years old. The Ministry of Defense said Thursday that the incident was regrettable and violated military policy. Sixteen and 17-year-olds can join the British army but are not allowed to participate in combat. The military blamed human error for what it said was an "extremely rare situation. " The Sun newspaper identified the recruit as Adam Wilkie and said he had served in a reserve battalion based in Cyprus.

DUBLIN - The outlawed Irish Republican Army apologized yesterday for its 1973 killing of a 9-year-old Northern Ireland boy who stumbled across an IRA bomb while playing in his backyard. The declaration was a major shift, since for decades the group had blamed the boy's death on the British Army. The IRA made its admission and apology for killing Gordon Gallagher after the dead boy's parents called publicly for Sinn Fein politician Martin McGuinness, the former IRA commander in Londonderry, to tell them who planted a bomb in their children's play area and why. The IRA said the...

BELFAST -- The Irish Republican Army apologized yesterday for shooting to death a Catholic girl in 1973 during a botched ambush on a British Army patrol. The IRA had long insisted that British soldiers killed the girl, 14-year-old Kathleen Feeney, in Londonderry, Northern Ireland's predominantly Catholic second-largest city. But in a statement published in the Derry Journal newspaper, the outlawed group said a new internal investigation had confirmed what the public had long believed: the IRA did it. "Our failure to publicly accept responsibility for her death until now has only added to the hurt and...

LONDON -- After 15 years of bitter arguments, Britain agreed yesterday to open a public inquiry into the assassination of a Belfast attorney who specialized in defending Irish Republican Army suspects. Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy confirmed he would introduce legislation permitting a fact-finding commission into allegations that intelligence officers from the Northern Ireland police and British Army colluded with the killers of Patrick Finucane. Roman Catholic politicians and Finucane's family have long campaigned for an independent...

LONDON - Keith Floyd, a flamboyant chef who shared his passion for good food and fine wine with a generation of British television viewers, has died at 65, his ghostwriter said Tuesday. James Steen said Mr. Floyd died Monday of a heart attack in Bridport, in southwest England. He had been suffering from bowel cancer. Born in 1943, Mr. Floyd developed an interest in cooking while serving in the British Army, trying out his culinary creations in the officers’ mess. He later worked in kitchens in Britain and France before opening his own restaurants in Bristol, in southwest...

BELFAST - Northern Ireland's police commander warned yesterday that his force must use a special British Army unit to spy on IRA dissidents, whom he described as "lunatics" bent on mounting an attack as St. Patrick's Day approaches. Chief Constable Hugh Orde confirmed that a half-dozen officers from the shadowy Special Reconnaissance Regiment arrived this week in Northern Ireland to begin intercepting communications among members of Irish Republican Army splinter groups, which are strongest along the border with the Republic of Ireland.

Hey! Aspiring film school drones! Would you like to win a Golden Globe award? It's within your reach, as long as you can write dreary scenes like these, from the PBS hit show "Downton Abbey": BATES, the basset hound of British valets, to his on-again, off-again girlfriend: "I don't know if I've dreaded this moment or longed for it. " The possibly virginal ANNA: "Well, either way, it's happened. " Wait, it gets worse. ANNA: "If you want me to throw up everything and come - yes, I will, gladly.

Britain's military says a soldier was mistakenly sent to fight on the front line in Afghanistan while he was still just 17 years old. The Ministry of Defense said Thursday that the incident was regrettable and violated military policy. Sixteen and 17-year-olds can join the British army but are not allowed to participate in combat. The military blamed human error for what it said was an "extremely rare situation. " The Sun newspaper identified the recruit as Adam Wilkie and said he had served in a reserve battalion based in Cyprus.

THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES: Bunker Hill, the First American Army and the Emergence of George Washington By Paul Lockhart Harper, 432 pp., $27.99 When did the American Revolution begin? When the first British settler stepped off the boat and strode onto an American shore? At the Boston Massacre? The battles at Lexington and Concord? Here’s one vote for a dark horse: the battle at Bunker Hill, which every American schoolchild knows wasn’t really fought at Bunker Hill at all. That vote comes from Paul Lockhart, whose “The Whites of their Eyes’’ is a persuasive argument that the fighting at...

Nearly one hundred schoolchildren, politicians, and history lovers honored the 236th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill yesterday by singing patriotic songs, wearing period clothing, and discussing the day’s significance. “I love this day,’’ said Joseph D’Amico, a park ranger at the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. “You get to see visitors from all over the country, and they’re here because they want to be here. It’s great.’’ The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775, between the Colonial troops and the well-equipped...

By Sara Brown, Town Correspondent On this day 236 years ago, Charlestown was the site of one of the pivotal battles of the Revolutionary War, as the colonial army inflicted surprising damage on the stronger, larger British army at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Bunker Hill Monument commemorating the battle -- which actually took place at nearby Breed's Hill -- was fairly quiet on this rainy anniversary of the battle, with visitors saying the Charlestown monument was another stop on their historical tour of Boston or part of their...

After the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, the first exiles came from the “cradle of liberty,’’ the gentry of Cambridge’s “Tory Row’’ and some 1,100 other Loyalists who fled Boston with the British army on what is remembered, if not popularly celebrated, as Evacuation Day. But their numbers would be dwarfed over the following years, as historian Maya Jasanoff recounts in “Liberty’s Exiles,’’ her masterful account of...

► Today is Sunday, Feb. 19, the 50th day of 2012. There are 316 days left in the year. ► Today's birthdays: Singer Smokey Robinson is 72. Singer Bobby Rogers (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles) is 72. Actress Carlin Glynn is 72. Sony chief executive Howard Stringer is 70. Singer Lou Christie is 69. Actor Michael Nader is 67. Rock musician Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell) is 64. Actor Stephen Nichols is 61. Author Amy Tan is 60. Actor Jeff Daniels is 57. Rock singer-musician Dave Wakeling is 56. Talk show host Lorianne Crook is 55. Actor Ray Winstone is 55. Actor Leslie David Baker (TV: "The Office")

Nearly one hundred schoolchildren, politicians, and history lovers honored the 236th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill yesterday by singing patriotic songs, wearing period clothing, and discussing the day’s significance. “I love this day,’’ said Joseph D’Amico, a park ranger at the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. “You get to see visitors from all over the country, and they’re here because they want to be here. It’s great.’’ The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775, between the Colonial troops and the well-equipped British Army.

‘How uncomfortably like a civil war,’’ remarked a British officer, on meeting several American army officers a year into the War of 1812. On the eve of the war, an Irish-American officer said bluntly that the British were “engaged in the hellish project of creating a civil war,’’ while a New Yorker commented that the hostility between the rival Federalists and Republicans was “little short of a civil war.’’ In “The Civil War...

LONDON - Keith Floyd, a flamboyant chef who shared his passion for good food and fine wine with a generation of British television viewers, has died at 65, his ghostwriter said Tuesday. James Steen said Mr. Floyd died Monday of a heart attack in Bridport, in southwest England. He had been suffering from bowel cancer. Born in 1943, Mr. Floyd developed an interest in cooking while serving in the British Army, trying out his culinary creations in the officers’ mess. He later worked in kitchens in Britain and France before opening his own restaurants in...