Missing in Action

by Ralph Riegel

  Despite this it was a happy childhood for Pat who, like other youngsters, revelled in the outdoors and the myriad local sports clubs. When he was old enough Pat attended Kilbehenny National School, just over two miles walk from his Boher home. His older brothers, Tom and Denis (Dinny), were already farming, while his sisters, Mary, Peggy and Nelly helped around the house until they got jobs, married and moved away.

  Pat Mullins shows a ready smile as a young schoolboy attending Kilbehenny national school. (Photo: Mullins family)

  Dinny focused on helping his father work the family farm, while Tom pioneered the route that Pat would soon follow – working for other farmers in the general Kilbehenny area. Tractors were almost unheard of on most small to medium Irish farms, so all the Mullins boys knew how to work with horses – a handy skill when it came to getting work from outside farmers.

  Life in the 1950s in Boher was anything but easy. There was no running water and supplies had to be drawn each day from a well some distance from the farmhouse. Similarly, there was no electricity. While the ESB had connected power to Kilbehenny village by the 1950s, Boher – some two miles away – did not get its supply until the early 1960s. Telephones, like televisions, were simply unheard of in most country homes. Even householders who could afford a telephone and were close enough to an existing Post & Telegraph (P&T) line to apply for one had to wait for the privilege. Sometimes the wait for a connection lasted as much as four years.

  Pat Mullins’ Confirmation (Photo Mullins Family)

  After completing his national school studies, there was little question of Pat attending secondary school. He could have cycled the six miles to Mitchelstown to attend the Christian Brothers secondary school but, such was the economic climate of the time, an immediate job and income appeared far preferable to both him and the Mullins family. A secondary school education meant money for books, pencils and clothes – and that was something that was in short supply in Ireland in the late 1950s.

  When his son was old enough to work, Ned Mullins made a few enquiries at the creamery and mart, at local cattle fairs and amongst his neighbours. One local farmer, Jack O’Brien, had a slot open for a general labourer and, such was the Mullins’ reputation for hard work and diligence, Pat was offered the job the minute he expressed an interest in it. Jack O’Brien was a good, kindly employer and he looked after Pat as if he was his own son. The O’Briens were well known in Kilbehenny because Jack’s brother Tim ran the local hostelry, The Three Counties Bar.

  Pat’s job was officially that of ‘yardman’. The ploughman – or more senior farm labourer – was Tom Kiely. Pat settled in quickly and was blessed that he had learned so many farming skills from Ned, Dinny and Tom. But it was hard work, because farming in Ireland had yet to become mechanised. Milking was done by hand and ploughing was a backbreaking task that usually started in November and continued until late February. If the weather was good, the ploughman was skilled, the horses willing and everything went well, a man could plough up to one acre a day. ‘But that would be a very good day,’ Dinny recalled.

  For two years Pat worked and saved. But at times it was like trying to swim up the River Blackwater against the current in the middle of a winter flood. It just couldn’t be done. No matter how hard he tried to save, there always seemed to be a bill on the horizon that had to be paid. Pat realised that there was very little money to be made from farming – and yet there was very little else available. Jobs in Mitchelstown Co-op did offer better pay, but were as scarce as hen’s teeth, such was the demand for positions. A German pencil firm, Faber-Castell, had opened in Fermoy, but any extra money he would make would be wiped out by the cost of having to either travel to Fermoy on a daily basis or secure lodgings in the town.

  Tom had worked for several years for farmers around Kilbehenny and decided he’d had enough. ‘If I couldn’t get a job in the creamery, I decided I’d head off to England,’ he recalled. But one of the farmers that he’d given loyal service to had connections with the creamery board and knew Tom was a dedicated and hard worker. He intervened to ensure Tom got a job with the creamery.

  Life was tough for everyone in pre-1960s Ireland. Pat’s sister, Mary, recalled that even attending dances was unheard of. ‘It just wasn’t done. We didn’t have a car in the 1950s let alone a tractor. We walked the two miles to school in Kilbehenny and if it was raining or frosty, our father would take the horse and cart and maybe meet us to bring us home. Sometimes we would catch a spin with him on the horse and cart to school in the morning if he was heading to the creamery.’

  Pat, as the youngest in the family, grew up seeing at first hand the limited social and economic options available to his siblings. ‘We had one radio and no one outside Dublin had a television set. We had an old wireless that had the usual wet cell and dry cell batteries. Our father would listen to the news and a match on a Sunday. Once in a while, we could listen to a short music programme, but when the adults came into the room, the wireless was switched off. If you were lucky, you got two weeks out of the battery before it had to be recharged.’

  Mary recalled how Pat’s social outlets were almost exclusively focused on sport and music. ‘When you had your jobs done, like drawing water from the well and bringing in turf and timber for the fire, you could go down to the crossroads where there’d usually be someone either playing hurling or football. Sometimes there might be a game of skittles or handball going on in the village where the boys would go.

  ‘In the summertime, a stage would be set up in Kilbehenny village and there would be traditional dancing and Irish music. We would sit on the grass outside our home at Boher if the weather was fine and hear the music playing in the distance. But if we wanted music ourselves, we had to play it in the house. Pat was a very good singer and he had learned a few Jim Reeves songs from the wireless. Sometimes you’d play the accordion or the tin whistle as an accompaniment.’

  Mary Mullins married Tom Kent in October 1959 and the happy couple are serenaded by an accordion player. Pat Mullins is pictured, flower in his lapel, standing third from right. (Photo: Mullins family)

  Pat’s other great love – like so many boys of his generation – was the cinema. It was like a window onto an alien, forbidden world. A world of western gunfights, fearless pirates, courageous soldiers and wicked Chicago gangsters that Pat could only marvel at. The problem was that the only local cinema was in Mitchelstown and getting to go there was a rarity. Hence the local saint’s day – St Fanahan’s Day, which fell on 25 November – was a special treat because it meant a trip into Mitchelstown to go to pray at the local holy well dedicated to the long-dead holy man. But it also meant Pat and his friends could check out what shows were playing at the local cinema and marvel at the glitzy posters outside.

  ‘We were a very close family and Pat, being the youngest, was looked out for by everyone else. But he wasn’t spoiled – he was expected to work as hard as the rest of us. But he somehow had a great confidence about him – and you could see that on the hurling or football field where he was a fine player,’ Mary added.

  By April 1960, Pat had finally had enough. He was tired of working as a farm labourer and decided it was time to consider his options. He’d seen how Tom had tired of the backbreaking grind and been fortunate enough to get a creamery job. Maybe he could follow suit. But above all else, Pat was determined not to spend another winter as a farm labourer. Pat realised he had one major alternative – the army.

  It was an alternative career path that Pat shared with another young man who, that very same month, a mere thirty miles away, was struggling with the same harsh realities of Irish economic life. John O’Mahony from Tallow in west Waterford was similarly disillusioned with life as a farm labourer and, at seventeen, was also wondering if he had other options available to him. ‘You had three choices at the time if you were a young lad from the country who didn’t want to work as a farm labourer – you could try for a job in a factory, but they were like diamonds in a coal mine. You could
emigrate to England or America, but that was seen as a last resort because, like hundreds of other lads, you might never again make it back home. Or you could join the army,’ John explained.

  The financial arguments in favour of a life in uniform were very persuasive indeed. Compared to a farm labourer earning just £2 a week for six days of backbreaking labour, a young man in his very first week in uniform could expect to be paid £2 19s 6d. After a six-month training period, that would rise to £3 10s. Recruits had a uniform and boots provided for them – and received three square meals each day.

  But it was the social benefits that made the army seem like a godsend. Soldiers were off every weekend unless they were on special duties – and rarely worked beyond 5 p.m. unless they were on guard patrol. And the offer of promotion to corporal, sergeant or even sergeant major offered the tantalising prospect of even better pay.

  ‘My parents weren’t too keen on the idea of me joining the army,’ John explained. ‘It wasn’t that they had anything against the military, it was just that they thought the best career for me was in farming. But I was seventeen and thought there was more to life than working from dawn to dusk and never really having any money of my own. To us, the army was a different world – going to Collins Barracks in Cork for basic training, maybe being sent to Spike Island on guard duty, or even going to Dublin or the Curragh. In those days they were almost exotic assignments.’

  Pat Mullins travelled to Collins Barracks and signed on to become a soldier on 9 May 1960 with the Recruit No. 810552. The trip to Collins Barracks was Pat’s first ever trip on a bus and his first ever trip to Cork city. John O’Mahony made the same journey the week before, signing up on 5 May. The two young men ended up on the same No. 6 training platoon. Given their backgrounds and ages, it was hardly surprising that they quickly became friends.

  For Pat, it was a decision that took great courage. He didn’t tell his father that he was going and, eventually, the recruiting staff – realising Pat’s age – made contact with Ned back in Boher and asked what they wanted him to do?

  ‘My father said: “Look, if you send him home he’ll probably go across the water and join the army for John Bull. He wants to be in the army so it might as well be the Irish army.” My father told them to keep Pat above in Collins Barracks if they could. That’s how it happened,’ Dinny explained.

  But if Pat and John thought army life was going to be exotic, they were quickly disabused of the notion. The pay was good but the training regime was tough. Recruits were relentlessly drilled on parade ground procedures, marching orders, kit and uniform discipline. Both Pat and John were assigned to Block 6 at Collins Barracks’ Command Training Depot. The assigned platoon sergeant was Sgt John Cusack who worked alongside Corporals Bill Sisk, Joe Hunt and John St John. They were tough but fair – with Sgt Cusack determined to ensure his recruits, no matter their age or ability, were turned into competent soldiers.

  Within a matter of days, Pat Mullins and John O’Mahony had become confidants and spent most of their social time together. ‘Pat was a country lad like myself. We had both worked on farms and I suppose we had a lot in common. Pat was only seventeen but he had a quiet confidence about himself. He always seemed to be smiling and in good humour – and that’s very important when you’re training and the sergeants and corporals spend most of the day roaring at you for getting things wrong,’ John recalled.

  After a few weeks, the recruits were deemed to have learned the basics of parade ground discipline and were introduced to the weapon that they would now train on – the venerable Lee-Enfield Mk IV rifle. The Lee-Enfield – itself a development of the earlier Lee-Metford rifle – had equipped the British army in various guises throughout both the First and Second World Wars. The rifle might be more than fifty years old, but it was every bit as deadly now as it had been when British troops opened fire on German infantry in Flanders in 1914, making the German troops think they were under machine gun fire.

  The army had huge stocks of the Lee-Enfield rifles – many of which dated back to the 1914–1916 era. Regular units were soon to be equipped with the Belgian-made FN assault rifle, but army recruits still learned their infantryman’s craft on the old .303 calibre Lee-Enfield.

  ‘Pat was probably the most natural soldier amongst us. He always seemed to be happy, it was impossible to faze him and he took to army life like a duck to water. But it was his quiet confidence that astonished us all. Most of us recruits were fascinated but terrified of women – remember this was Ireland of the late 1950s. But Pat was a smooth operator and, within weeks of basic training starting, he was going out with a gorgeous-looking girl called Esther from Sunday’s Well. I walked out with him one evening when he was meeting her and I watched, from a distance mind you, as he met up with her. I was green with envy because she was a smashing-looking girl,’ John recalled.

  By October, Platoon No. 6 had finished its basic training rotation and the recruits were ready for their assignments. Not surprisingly, Pat and John were earmarked for assignment to Fitzgerald Camp in Fermoy, with the then 1st Motor Squadron. The north Cork camp was Ireland’s inheritance of the vast British army base that had been built up there between 1800 and 1914. At its peak, the Fermoy-Kilworth military complex was second in size only to the Curragh Camp in Kildare. During the War of Independence the British even based Bristol and Martynside spotting aircraft at the base – earning it the nickname of ‘the Aerodrome’, which lasted for decades after the last British aircraft went home.

  Pat and John were joined by six other recruits: Pat Crofton, Mick Casey, Jimmy Burke, John Murphy, Joe ‘Josie’ O’Grady and John Clifford, for an assignment that seemed more like an early Christmas present. (Josie O’Grady was an accomplished sportsman and went on to play League of Ireland football with Cork.) Pat and John knew that an assignment to Fermoy meant training either on armoured cars or motorcycles as dispatch riders – and being close enough to home to visit family and friends.

  ‘Fermoy was our dream assignment because we were close to home and because we’d be training on some of the most serious equipment the army possessed. A BSA, Triumph or Jawa motorcycle cost a full year’s wages for a working man – maybe more. And here we were being sent out to train on them – how to handle the bike at speed, how to cross a river without stalling and how to negotiate over fields and forest tracks. We had been ordered to report for training to Sgt Paddy Fraher who was a tough taskmaster but as nice a man as you could ask to serve under. We were having the time of our lives and being paid for it,’ John recalled.

  Pat’s sister, Mary, had by now married and was living at Caher-drinna with her husband, Tom Kent, not far from Lynch Camp in Kilworth. With Pat and John on regular duties at the camp, it was inevitable that the Kent’s would become a ‘home from home’ for both young men.

  ‘The dispatch riders course took three months and we had both passed with flying colours by late February [1961]. It was around this time that we all began to realise that the Congo was more than likely going to be an overseas assignment for some of us. Eleven soldiers had been killed the previous November in the Niemba ambush and I think that shocked every single person in an Irish uniform as well as the entire country,’ John added.

  With no immediate dates for a Congo deployment, the duo got on with being young men. Pat was a handy hurler and was immediately recruited by teams that played on the camp sports field in Fermoy. He quickly graduated to the cavalry senior team and, despite having just turned eighteen in November, was tough and wiry enough to hold his own on the field of play. On occasion, both Pat and John would be asked to ‘guest’ on some of the inter-firm teams that played GAA leagues in Mitchelstown on weekend mornings.

  ‘We’d seen Pat play in Kilbehenny, but I don’t think we realised just how good he was until we started seeing him on the army teams. He was quite young compared to the other soldiers but he was wiry, tough and had a great touch with a hurley,’ his brother Tom recalled. It wasn’t long before army and Fermoy sid
es were seeking the GAA services of the young Boherman.

  The army commanders encouraged sport because it not only kept the men fit, but also served to promote the army as a career. The young troopers spent the rest of their social time trying to meet girls at local dances, going to the cinema and listening to albums of their favourite singers, usually Elvis Presley, Jim Reeves or Johnny Cash. A few went drinking but, even with the subsidised cost of pints in the army canteen, given his wages there was a limit to how much a young trooper could spend. For Pat and John, the lure of the cinema and dance halls was vastly greater than that of the pub.

  ‘In Fermoy, the Ormonde cinema was hugely popular. But Cork was the real attraction. That was where the real nightlife was and, I suppose, where the greatest number of girls was. Whenever we were based in the city we would go to the Gaylord dancehall or, if a good film was showing, to the Capitol, the Pavilion, the Palace or the Savoy. That’s where you went if you were taking a girl out and wanted to impress her. If it was just a night out with the lads, you’d go to the cheaper places like the Assembly Rooms or the Lido in Blackpool. They were a bit more downmarket than the other cinemas and you did occasionally run the risk of getting cigarette butts flicked at the back of your head from up in the gallery. But the Assembly Rooms and the Lido always had great westerns and war movies showing which was good enough for us,’ John explained.

  Pat was a good singer and he became famed within his platoon for his more than capable versions of ‘Red River Valley’ and ‘Mona Lisa’, which he would sing on marches or in the army canteens. He particularly loved Jim Reeves and never needed an excuse to break into his favourite songs and ballads.

  With the Congo increasingly dominating headlines in news-papers like the Irish Independent, The Irish Press and The Cork Exa-miner and seemingly omnipresent on RTÉ radio news bulletins, the feeling began to spread that another deployment to Africa was now inevitable. The only question was when would the troopers from Fitzgerald Camp be again asked to volunteer now that the 32nd and 33rd Battalions had finished their tours of duty and the 34th was about to rotate back to Ireland?