by Joe Power
Lord Wimborne in reply referred to the Irish Brigades in France: ‘just like the Clare men of Lord Clare’s Dragoons who fought at Fontenoy in olden times. It may well be that the Irish Brigades of today, who are fighting in Flanders, may help the French to win a new Fontenoy over a different enemy.’ The meeting concluded with the band playing ‘A nation once again’. Afterwards the viceregal party had lunch with Mr H.R. Glynn, DL. Among the guests were Miss Glynn, V. Revd Canon, McInerney PP, VG; the rector, Revd Canon Armstrong, and Mrs Armstrong; Mr W.J Glynn, JP, and Mrs Glynn and Mrs W. de Courcy.
Young Man
Is anyone proud of you?
Is your mother proud of you?
Is your sister proud of you?
Is your sweetheart proud of you?
Is Ireland proud of you?
Join an Irish regiment
TO-DAY
Clare Journal, 2 September 1915.
Lord Wimborne at Kilrush House, from Irish Life magazine.
(Courtesy of Glynn papers, per Paul O’Brien)
At Kilkee the visitors were given a royal reception, with the local band playing ‘Rule Britannia’ as well as some national airs. They proceeded to Moore Hall, where they were received by Canon Glynn, PP, and the chairman of the Kilkee Town Commissioners. Lord and Lady Wimborne walked along the West End before they departed.
After leaving Kilkee the distinguished party motored through Doonbeg and the parish of Kilmurry to Quilty where they were received by Fr John Glynn, PP. There was a short meeting attended by a large crowd.
At Miltown Malbay the viceroy was welcomed by Revd Canon Hannon, PP, and was informed that ‘a considerable number of men from the west had enlisted’, some from Miltown, and he met Capt. Tottenham from Mountcallan, who had lost an arm at Gallipoli.
There was a brief stop at Lahinch, where Lord Wimborne spoke to Dr C.H. Blood and Revd R. Ross Lewin. At the Temperance Hall Ennistymon, Lord Wimborne was told that Ennistymon, since the start of the year, ‘had sent an average of ten young men each month to the colours.’
The tour concluded at Ennis, where Sir Michael O’Loghlen, HML for County Clare, and other ‘worthies’ attended his farewell from Clare.
Shortly after his visit, Lord Wimborne sent a letter of thanks to O’Loghlen, thanking him and the people of Clare for the cordial reception given to him and to his wife. He said that he was pleased to see Guards of Honour provided by the National Volunteers and to hear the national anthem played by the local town bands. In reply, Sir Michael O’Loghlen stated that the provision of Guards of Honour by the National Volunteers and the playing of the national anthem by the local bands ‘may be taken as showing the unity of our empire against the enemies of civilisation, who now menace the safety of our land’.12
At a meeting of Ennis Urban Council in July 1915 the council voted against conscription. Mr MacNamara said that Ennis had done its fair share, that 450 men had left the town of Ennis and its environs … other towns had done as well, Kilrush, he said, had been ‘weeded out’… conscription would not suit the county, it had done more than its duty. Mr P.J. Linnane said that many men who wished to enlist were rejected because they had one or two teeth out. These men were not wanted to eat the Germans, but to shoot them, he exclaimed. ‘These men were now walking around the town of Ennis instead of fighting the Germans.’13
The recruiting campaigns bore some fruit when the Saturday Record noted that six RIC men joined the Irish Guards. The constables were from the Corofin and Tulla stations. Furthermore, five members of the Ennis postal staff also joined the colours. These were men in secure state positions, who did not need to enlist and they were guaranteed jobs when and if they returned home.
Lord Wimborne at Kilkee.
(Courtesy of Glynn papers, per Paul O’Brien)
Earlier in the year the recruiting agents in Clare got a boost when Jack Fox from Newmarket-on-Fergus enlisted. He was ‘a well-known and popular Gael’, who was a member of the Clare senior hurling team that won the All-Ireland title in 1914. Jack Fox had played in the right half back position in that team. The newspaper report stated that ‘he got a hearty send-off on Tuesday’. His enlistment in the Irish Guards, it was hoped, might have inspired other Gaels to join up as well.
Jack Fox was born in 1892. He worked on Lord Inchiquin’s estate at Dromoland and may have been inspired by the pro-war atmosphere in Dromoland at the time to enlist in 1915, when he was aged about 23. It must be remembered that Lord and Lady Inchiquin were very active in promoting recruitment and in helping war charities in Clare. In fact Lord Inchiquin’s half-brother, the Hon. Desmond O’Brien, enlisted in the RAF in 1914; and his son and heir, the Hon. Donough O’Brien, joined the army in 1916. Even the children were exposed to war propaganda. At a Christmas party in Dromoland Castle in 1916 for the Church of Ireland children of Kilnasoolagh parish, ‘Father Christmas’ delivered the following message in a scroll:
Jack Fox in 1914.
(Courtesy of John Power)
Have courage!
To those who nobly fight
Victory and peace shall come
But Shirkers shall have nought
But misery as their doom!
Jack Fox was a well-built, athletic figure over 6 feet tall. He served on the Western Front and fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. He was injured by shrapnel during that battle and was taken back to a Dublin hospital to recuperate. Apparently, some shrapnel remained in his body until his death.
Of course one consequence of his decision to join the British Army in July 1915 was that he was automatically banned from the GAA, because Rule 21, barred members of the RIC, British Army and Royal Navy from joining the GAA. The GAA ban may also have been a significant factor which discouraged many Gaels in nationalist circles, especially in rural areas of the county, from joining the British forces during the war. Jack Fox could no longer play for his club or county after he enlisted and for the duration of the war. This may have been a painful breach for him. However, after he was de-mobilised in 1919, he was again eligible to join the GAA and he did.
He resumed his inter-county career when he played in the Munster semi-final against Limerick in May 1919 at the Showgrounds, Ennis, which Limerick won by 6-6 to 4-1. That was his last senior championship game with Clare, though he did play for Clare in a senior challenge game against Kerry in April 1924.
Jack Fox also resumed his career with Newmarket-on-Fergus and he played in three more county finals, winning two more county senior hurling championship medals in the mid-twenties. He was a member of the losing side against Ennis Dalcassians in 1924, but he was on the winning teams against Tulla in 1925 and against O’Callaghan’s Mills in 1926. He retired from senior hurling with his club in 1926 at the age of 34.
During the 1960s he, as a hurling hero of the first Clare All-Ireland winning team, used to proudly lead the parade of Newmarket-on-Fergus hurlers around the pitch before county hurling finals. Jack Fox died in June 1967, the last survivor of the 1914 team.
According to his grandson, he said little or nothing about his wartime experiences. However, he did tell a story about how he was rescued after he was injured by a fellow soldier named Martin Faulkner. Martin Faulkner brought the injured Jack Fox to safety. In fact, Martin Faulkner was a well-known Itinerant, who tramped the roads of Clare and many other parts of Ireland for many years after the war up to his death in the mid-1970s.14
Martin Faulkner in 1975. (Courtesy of Francis Power)
A novel way of encouraging recruitment was demonstrated when an Ennis man was prosecuted for being drunk and disorderly. The judge, Mr McElroy, RM, gave the defendant, Michael Walsh, a choice of two months in jail or else the Probation Act if he enlisted. Mr McElroy, RM, said that Walsh was of no use in Ennis and that he might join the army. When asked by his solicitor, Mr Hunt, whether he would enlist if the case was adjourned for a month, Walsh replied, to the amusement of the court audience, “I will surr, begor I will surr”.15
Opposition to Recru
itment
However, other forces were at work in Clare to frustrate the recruitment campaign. Mr Ernest Blythe, a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and an organiser for the Irish Volunteers, was arrested in Ennistymon. He was ordered out of the county and country under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). According to the report, Mr Blythe had been busy in Clare for some weeks, having made Ennis his HQ. He was subject to very rigid police surveillance, with plain-clothed policemen detailed to keep him under observation at all times in his trips around the county. He was endeavouring to organise a corps of the Irish Volunteers, but, according to the report in the Saturday Record, his efforts in Ennis at any rate, ‘had borne little fruit’. He had in fact reviewed the Ennis corps of the National Volunteers and was endeavouring to subvert their allegiance to John Redmond, until they discovered his true identity.16
Michael Brennan of Meelick reveals in his memoirs how he and others helped to organise Irish Volunteer companies throughout East Clare after the split with Redmond. He first started in Meelick and Oatfield, his native parish. In order to increase their numbers and publicise their cause, they used to hold parades after Sunday Masses and on popular social occasions such as hurling matches and tug-o’-war tournaments. Through these means they set up Irish Volunteer companies all over east and mid-Clare in parishes such as Clonlara, Cratloe, Newmarket-on-Fergus, Clare Castle, Crusheen, Ennis, Feakle, O’Callaghan’s Mills, Ogonelloe, Scariff, Sixmilebridge and Tulla. They sang ‘A Soldier’s Song’ over the hills of Clare. They did, however, encounter some strong vocal opposition on occasions from the wives of men serving in the British forces, ‘separation women’, whom he referred to as ‘viragoes’.17
John O’Brien from Ennis was charged under DORA with covering up recruitment posters. He was given the benefit of the Probation Act. Later in the year an illiterate Kilrush man called Peter Casey was fined one shilling for covering up a recruitment poster in Kilrush. In July, Mr Sean O’Muirthile, a Gaelic League organiser in Clare, was prosecuted under DORA for refusing to fill out a residency form at a Lisdoonvarna hotel. He was fined the substantial sum of £2 plus 16 shillings costs.18
At a court case in Kilrush, James MacDonnell, a farmer, was prosecuted for assaulting a soldier in a pub in Kilrush. The defendant stated that there was a feeling that it was all the ‘scruff of Kilrush that were in the army and that only for the rowdies there would not be an army at all!’19
Miss Adelaide Palmer from Dublin sought damages of £7 for being thrown off her bicycle and flung into a bog hole in Rahona. She was employed at Carrigaholt as a technical instructor. She volunteered as a nurse at the beginning of the war and immediately became unpopular and was denounced as ‘a recruiting agent’. She said that the authorities at the Irish College at Carrigaholt called her ‘a security agent’.20
A New Department of Recruitment
Towards the end of the year, because of the war of attrition and the huge casualties on the Western Front, the need for more recruits was urgent. The civil and military authorities decided to organise recruitment in a more professional manner. They established a new recruitment structure in the county. Lt Abrahall, son of the Church of Ireland minister at Drumcliffe, Ennis, was appointed recruiting officer for the county, with the Ennis barracks as his HQ. New recruits were requested to call to Sgt Connolly’s offices at Military Road, Ennis. Mr Michael O’Halloran of Tulla was chosen as recruiting organiser for East Clare. Col Sir Charles Barrington, recruiting organiser for Limerick and Clare, also appointed Mr C.E. Glynn of Kilrush recruiting organiser for West Clare, including Ennis.
Mr C.E. Glynn was appointed with the temporary rank, pay and allowances of a lieutenant, with an outfit allowance of £20. He did not, however, wish to be based in Ennis and he requested that Kilrush be made a Recruitment Office for West Clare. After his appointment C.E. Glynn stated that ‘he called on some of the principal shopkeepers in Ennis and Kildysart … and I am glad to say that all promised to assist me in recruiting and to do what they could to encourage farmers to join up’. One of the local newspapers commented: ‘Owing to his intimate connections with the area, his efforts should prove fruitful.’ Between the middle of November 1915 and the end of the year, Glynn was quite active in promoting recruitment. He canvassed all the leading people of West Clare for support and he made his family car available to officers to carry out a recruiting campaign in West Clare in November after Capt. Browning of the Recruitment Office, Limerick, requested the use of Mr Glynn’s car ‘for the use by four officers on a recruitment tour from Kilrush to Kilmihil and from Kilkee to Carrigaholt and Cross on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th November’.21
Earlier in the year, his brother, H.R. Glynn, was in touch with the Department of Recruitment in Ireland. Sir W. Grey-Wilson wrote to him thanking him for cooperating with Sir Michael O’Loghlen HML ‘in framing a plan for spreading the truth about the war, about its causes and consequences on Co. Clare.’ H.R. Glynn also wrote to John Redmond advising him that ‘a large number of our men have volunteered’; he also sought Redmond’s opinion on the war and prospects about the state of things in twelve months time – ‘businessmen have to look ahead!’
In March H.R. Glynn, an astute businessman, wrote to Mr E.C. Blanchflower, secretary to the vice-admiral commanding at Queenstown (Cobh), tendering for business, ‘we can supply coal, flour, oil or provisions to any vessels patrolling the west coast. At Cappa pier we can take up to 1,100 tons’. He added, ‘80 men who used to work for us, some of them occasionally, are serving with the forces and more than 200 have gone from Kilrush.’
Mr Glynn also wrote to the director of contracts at the admiralty in London seeking business, ‘Sir, add my name to the list of firms tendering for the supply of flour, coal and provisions for the navy. Cappa pier can accommodate vessels of up to 1,000 tons … larger vessels at Scattery Roads. More than 100 men who worked in our employment are now serving with the colours and about 300 Kilrush men, out of a population of 3,600 have enlisted up to the present.’
In March H.R. Glynn wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, The Hon. David Lloyd George MP, ‘Sir, I read with great pleasure your reply to the deputation on the drinks question and trust you will stop or limit the sale of drink during the war … the population of this town in the west coast of Ireland before the war was 3,600. Over 260 men are now serving in the army and navy and during the past week, fifty volunteered.’
Also in March of this year H.R. Glynn wrote to Maj. Ivers, Mount Ivers, Sixmilebridge, seeking special concessions with regard to his workforce at Kilrush, effectively a veto on the recruitment of skilled mill workers.
As flour and Indian meal millers, will you kindly allow us to bring the following matter under your notice with respect to men from our employment wishing to join the colours. Up to the present more than 85 men who have worked with us are now serving with the colours and it is our wish to encourage all who possibly can to join. At the same time our mills can only be worked with the assistance of several skilled men, most of whom it takes several years to train, and if these skilled men leave us we shall not be able to replace them. Under the circumstances, we would be very much obliged if you would kindly give instructions to the Kilrush Recruiting Officer, not to take on any men without at least getting our permission.22
Belgian Refugees
In January 1915 the first Belgian refugees arrived in County Clare. Some of them were accommodated in the old army barracks at Clare Castle, while others were given accommodation by Lord Inchiquin at Castlefergus, Newmarket-on-Fergus, and at the Ordnance Survey House, Ennis. Ethel, Lady O’Brien, wife of Lord Inchiquin, played a major role in the county in looking after the Belgian refugees. For her work with the Belgian refugees and her generosity, Lady Inchiquin received a medal from the Queen of Belgium at the end of the war.
The presence of these Belgian refugees, who came from the Flemish part of the country near Antwerp, was used by the authorities for propaganda purposes. In interviews, they spoke of the
horrors they had experienced at the hands of the ‘merciless Huns’, the foul deeds, massacres and ‘outrages’ committed by the Germans were told by those who had first-hand experience. These opinions were supplemented by letters from the front and by other sources, which spoke of the events such as the destruction of Louvain, an 83-year-old priest hoisted on a cannon gun, priests shot, and ‘horrifying revelations by a Belgian nun’, etc. The propaganda machine was well oiled. The ‘brave Belgian Catholics’ were getting good notice in the newspapers, which helped promote recruitment among the Catholic men of Clare.23
While the Belgian refugees were being welcomed to County Clare, their ‘enemies’ living in the county were arrested and interned. Two Germans working in Lahinch and one working in Ennis were arrested. Mr Esch, manager of the Golf Links Hotel and Mr Franz Bitzen a waiter at the same hotel, both German citizens, were picked up. In Ennis Josef Fehrenbach, a jeweller’s assistant working in Ennis was also arrested as an enemy alien and sent to the Curragh for the duration of the war. Mr Joseph Maurer a leading jeweller and Mr Clement Dilger, watchmaker, both of whom had lived in Ennis for more than twenty-five years, were also interned.24
Clare Castle army barracks. (Courtesy of John Power)
Is Ireland to share Belgium’s fate?
Read what the Germans have done to the
Churches, Priests, women and children of Belgium,
Men of Ireland
The sanctity of your Churches, the safety of your homes, the honour of your women can only be secured by
Defeating the Germans in Belgium
