by Joe Power
In the meantime the county remained under martial law and hundreds of troops and extra RIC men tried to keep law and order in the county, while the members of Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers and the local members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood were growing in strength and becoming more defiant of the British Government. The election of 1918, with an overwhelming victory for Sinn Féin, gave the republicans a moral mandate to pursue their aims against the British, and the Irish Volunteers were determined to fight for Ireland’s cause.
Just before Christmas an editorial in the Clare Champion expressed a sincere wish for peace:
The Christmas of 1918 will be welcomed by all as one of general joy and thanksgiving at the lifting of the horrid nightmare which has enveloped our people for the past four-and-a-half years and we can only hope that it will be the forerunner of a long period of universal peace through the countries of the world. It has come at the time of the most awful war that has ever chastised mankind, which has brought empires and kingdoms rocking to their downfall, and wrought an upheaval, of which we can yet barely realise the extent.
Our poor country has been by no means the least sufferer, though thank God, we have been spared the worst blows of the Red Demon of warfare. But many homes through the length and breadth of the land have given of their best and bravest to the great sacrifice, and willingly borne the attending tears and sorrow.
The bright lining of the dark cloud which has so long hung over us is, however, now to be seen shining on our people, and we hope we are emerging from the shadow into days of prosperity and plenitude, though many hours of hardship and suffering have yet to be endured. But the worst is over, and the bells of the New Year, it will be the prayer of all, will ring out the thousand wars of old, and ring in the thousand years of peace. We wish all our readers a Happy Xmas and a prosperous New Year.50
Some Gallant Clare Men and Women
The following soldiers and nurses from Clare received awards for distinguished service in wartime: Sgt J. Slattery, from Kilrush, of the Canadian Army was awarded the DCM. He had the distinction of serving with the armies of three countries and fighting wars on three continents – Africa, America and Europe. His citation read as follows, ‘During an attack he led a flanking party which rushed an enemy pill box. He personally shot eight of the defendants, and succeeded in cutting off a party of the enemy who were retreating. The success of the enterprise was largely due to him’. Sgt Slattery served in the South African (Boer) War, where he won two medals. Then he went to America where he joined the United States Army. While there he was sent to Mexico and served during the troubles in that country. He next went to Canada to volunteer for the Great War and was sent to France as part of the Canadian Army.
Cpl Frank Gordon, of Clare Castle, serving with the US army was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre, the highest award of the French Army, and the DSC from the US Military, for his heroic sacrifice in attempting to rescue a wounded colleague in France.
Private Stephen Scully, RMF, from Ennistymon was awarded the Military Medal for ‘gallantry and fearless conduct on the battle field’.
On August 28th during an attack this stretcher-bearer rendered most valuable assistance to the wounded of his own battalion and of the battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment. He worked fearlessly and untiringly from 2 pm on the 28th until 6am on the 29th, and cleared a whole area of wounded. After the battalion had been relieved he refused to come out until he had rescued those who were lying in shell holes outside his own area. On September 2nd he displayed the same gallantry working in an intense barrage, bandaging the wounded, and later returning carried them to the aid post.
Military awards were granted to two brave Clare nurses for their services in military hospitals during the war. Miss Nellie Galvin, of Caherbanna, a member of Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, was one of 135 women from the British Empire to whom the MM was awarded. Nurse Galvin trained in the Meath Hospital, Dublin and in the County Dublin Infirmary. She joined the Civil Hospital Reserve in October 1914 and served throughout the war in casualty clearing stations and hospitals in France at places such as Etaples, Bailliul, Abbeville, St Omer, Wimereaux, Malassie and Ebbinghem. Her citation in the London Gazette of 31 July 1918 was as follows:
For bravery and devotion to duty during an enemy air raid, (at no. 10 Station Hospital, St Omer, on the night of 22-23 May), when four enemy bombs were dropped on the hospital, causing much damage to the ward in which Sister Galvin was on night duty. She remained in the ward attending to the sick, several of whom were wounded, and carried on her work as if nothing had happened. She displayed the greatest coolness and devotion to duty.
Miss Galvin was invited by King George V to Buckingham Palace on 18 December 1919. In addition, Miss Galvin received the 1914 Star as a member of the Civil Hospital Reserve, as well as British War and Victory medals.
Miss Nellie Galvin SRN with the Military Medal. (Courtesy of the Galvin family, Ennis)
(Miss Galvin was sister-in-law of Mr Sarsfield Maguire, editor of the Clare Champion and she took over the management of the paper from 1937 until her death in 1965.)
Another Clare nurse, Miss Cissie Moore, Kilrush, was awarded the DSM by the Greek Government for bravery and distinguished service at Salonika in Greece during the war. She was the only Irish nurse to have received such an honour.
Another Clare lady, Miss Mary (Molly) O’Connell Bianconi, from Ballylean House, Kildysart, was also honoured for her bravery during the war and was awarded the MM ‘for conspicuous devotion to duty during a hostile air raid in 1918, when she showed great bravery and coolness’. Molly O’Connell was born on 22 December 1896. She was educated at Lack National School and later at Laurel Hill, Limerick and in Jersey. She went to ‘finishing school’ in Belgium and in Paris, but her education was interrupted by the outbreak of war. She joined the Voluntary Aid Department in 1915 and later the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. She was transferred to France in 1917 and served in field hospitals at Amiens and St Omer, where she worked in the Women’s Transport Service, ferrying wounded soldiers from the front line to hospitals and railway stations. She was presented with the MM by King George V in 1919. She served with the British forces again during the Second World War. Afterwards, she inherited Longfield House, Cashel, County Tipperary, where she opened a hotel. Mary O’Connell Bianconi died in 1968. In 2009 the new Department of Nursing and Healthcare at Waterford Institute of Technology was named the Mary O’Connell Bianconi Building in her honour for her services to nursing, by the Minister for Health and Children, Ms Mary Harney TD.
Mary (Molly) O’Connell Bianconi, SRN, MM. (Courtesy of the Irish War Museum)
Sgt Clune, Kilrush, RGA, was presented with a DCM for ‘gallantry and devotion to duty under continuous shellfire’ by Gen. Sir Archibald Murray; Fr Clune, a chaplain with the Anzacs, a native of Ruan, was awarded the MC for his services at the front; Fr Moran, CF, a chaplain from Tulassa, Ennis, was awarded an MC for gallantry; Capt. P. Hickey, RE. Indian Expeditionary Force, Mesopotamia, from Kilkee, was awarded the DSO, while his brother, Capt. A.J. Hickey, Royal Army Medical Corps, received the MC for valour in France; Lt J.B. Maclachlann of Knockerra got the MC for bravery; Sgt W. Hickey of Clare Castle received the Meritorious Service Medal; 2nd Lt Henry Busker of Carrigoran, was awarded the MC for ‘conspicuous bravery’ serving with the Leinster Regt. in the field of battle in France, he was also awarded the Divisional Card of Honour; L-Cpl W.H. Cooks of Killaloe was awarded a bar to the MM; Capt. W.F. Cullinan, Bellvue, Ennis, was awarded the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George, in 1919; Lt F.J. Slattery, 7th Field Co. was mentioned in a despatch dated 7 April 1918, from Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, for ‘gallant and distinguished service in the field’. This posthumous award was granted to the parents of Lt F.J. Slattery, Fergus View, Darragh in a letter from the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, on 1 March 1919.51
Roll of Honour
By the end of this year
at least 125 Clare people had died because of the war, including six women who drowned in the sinking of the SS Leinster. The majority of the soldiers were killed on the Western Front in Belgium and France, due to the German push in the spring, but others died in new fronts in Greece (Salonika) and in Palestine.52
Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;
There was peace on earth and silence in the sky;
Some could, some could not, shake off misery;
The Sinister Spirit Sneered: ‘It had to be!’
And again the Spirit of Pity whispered: ‘Why?’53
Notes
1. CC, 19 January, 16 February 1918.
2. CC, 9 February 1918.
3. SR, 9 February 1918.
4. SR, 23 February 1918.
5. SR, 9 February, 2 March, 1918.
6. SR, 2 March, 1918; See note 12, Chapter One above. For a comprehensive account of this tragic land dispute see Philomena Butler, ‘Outrage at Drumdoolaghty, The Francie Hynes Affair,’ in The Other Clare, Vol. 30, 2006, pp.15-22.
7. SR, 2 March 1918; O’Ruairc, op. cit., p.77, has a statement from one of the attackers, John Joe Neylon, who states that they were not masked, though the contemporary newspaper account states that they were masked.
8. Power, Joseph, The GAA in Clare Castle 1887-1987, pp.34-35; Joseph Power, A History of Clare Castle and its Environs, p.222; CC, 12 October, 1914, 9 February, 2, 16, 23 March; SR, 5, 26 January, 2 March, 4 May, 6 July, 17 August 1918. Records of interview between the author and the late Jim Reilly of Castlefergus, c. 30 July 1977.
9. Brennan, Michael, op. cit., p.33; SR, 9, 30 March, 15 June 1918.
10. SR, 2 March 1918; CC, 24 January, 2 February 1918.
11. SR, 9 March 1918; CC, 1 March 1918.
12. SR, 9 March 1918
13. SR, 2 March, 15 June 1918,
14. SR, 27 April 1917; Henry, William, Galway and the Great War (Cork: Mercier Press, 2006), pp.70-71; De Wiel, op. cit., p.213.
15. SR, 27 April 1918.
16. De Wiel, op. cit., p.217; SR, 22 June, 1918; see index under Bishop Michael Fogarty at Clare County Research Library for copy of Bishop Fogarty’s letter to Sinn Féin.
17. De Wiel, op. cit., p.228.
18. SR, 15 June, 1918; CC, 22 January 1918, see also O’Muirceartaigh, Joe, Chronicle of Clare (Ennis: Fag an Bhealach, 2000), p.40.
19. SR, 28 September 1918.
20. SR, 11 May, 15 June 1918; Ronan Fanning, op. cit., pp xvii, 180-181 and 183-185; McMahon, Paul, British Spies and Irish Rebels, British Intelligence and Ireland, 1916-1945 (Dublin: Boydell Press, 2008), p.24.
21. SR, 10 August 1918.
22. SR, 16 June 1918. Mrs Studdert stated in a letter to the editor of the Saturday Record that this was one of many similar letters of gratitude, which she had received from Clare prisoners of war.
23. SR, 2 February 1918.
24. SR, 29 June, 27 July, 17 August, 7, 28 September, 12, 19 October 1918.
25. SR, 29 June, 12 October 1918; ‘Cycle and Motor Accessories from 1916 to 1918’, No.7 Ledger, M.F. Tierney, Abbey Street, Ennis. I am grateful to Mr Anthony Scanlan, Clare Castle, for bringing this source of information to my attention. SR, 14 September 1918.
26. SR, 27 July 1918.
27. SR, 3, 17 August 1918; Col Arthur Lynch’s appeal to Col Theodore Roosevelt was published, via Associated Press, in The New York Times of 8 July 1918. See also Denman, Terence, Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers, pp.173-174; also, Henry, William, Galway and the Great War, p.67.
28. SR, 23, 30 November 1918. Much of the second part of the letter is not included here as it went into too much technical detail on the effects of different types of gas attacks. Though the letter is undated it was written shortly after the sinking of the Leinster, but the earliest publication date was 23 November. I suspect, because of the anti-German tone of the letter, that it was written before the Armistice of 11 November.
29. SR, 9 November 1918.
30. SR, 7 September 1918.
31. Johnstone, Tom, Orange, Green and Khaki, the Story of the Irish Regiments in the Great War, 1914-1918, (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1992), p.64. For a German perspective on the Battle of Guillemont see Junger, Ernst, Storm of Steel (London: Penguin Classics, 2004), pp. 90-110.
32. SR, 5 October, 1918.
33. Cronin, Jim, Munster GAA Story, Vol. 1, printed by Clare Champion, Ennis, 1985; SR, 10 August 1918, p.108.
34. SR, 19, 26 October 1918.
35. nrmsleinster.com; SR, 12 October 1918.
36. The title of the famous German novel by Remarque, Erich Maria, All Quiet on the Western Front, originally published in 1929, from an edition translated from German by Brian Murdoch (London: Vintage Books, 2005).
37. Denman, Terence, Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992),p.174. The advertisement appeared in the Irish Independent of 3 December 1918. Among the clergy who proposed and endorsed de Valera were the following: Revd A. Clancy, PP Ballynacally; V. Revd Canon O’ Dea, St Flannan’s; Revd T. Molloy; Revd G. Clune; Revd W. Marrinan, PP; Revd J. Molony, CC; Revd M. Breen, PP; Revd W. Molony, CC; Revd P. Gaynor; Revd M. Considine, CC, Tulla; Revd W. O’Kennedy; Revd E. Vaughan, CC Kilkishen; Revd J. Greed, CC Killaloe; Revd P. Quinn, PP O’Callaghan’s Mills; Revd D. Flynn, CC Broadford; M. Murray, CC Newmarket-on-Fergus; Revd J. Clancy, CC; Revd Thomas Neylon, CC Crusheen; Revd J. Smyth, CC Corofin; Revd Marcus McGrath, CC Clare Castle; Revd M. Scanlan, CC; Revd James McInerney, CC; Revd Pat O’Reilly, CC, Feakle; Revd D. Flannery, CC Mountshannon; Revd James Daffy, PP; Revd Dan O’Dea, CC; Revd M. Crowe, CC Doora; Revd John O’Donoghue, CC Tulla; Revd P.J. Hewitt, CC, Kilkishen. In Kilrush only a small attendance turned up for the nomination of Mr Brian O’Higgins. Among those present were the following clergy: Revd James Clancy, PP, Revd A.J. Molony, CC, and Revd M.J. O’Houlihan, CC.
38. SR, 7 December 1918. Note, at a meeting of the Sinn Féin Executive in Kilrush, the chairman, Revd James Clancy, PP, stated that he was in favour of the selection of Peadar Clancy, the republican from Cranny, as a Sinn Féin candidate in West Clare, but stated that he was unable to contact him before the nomination day, SR, 30 November, 1918; O’Ruairc, op. cit., pp.85-86.
39. SR, 18 January 1918, 28 September, 5 October 1918.
40. Ferriter, Diarmuid, The Transformation of Ireland, 1900-2000 (London: Profile Books, 2004), pp.184-185. Foley, Catriona, The Last Irish Plague, the Great Flu Epidemic 1918-19 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2011), p.16. See also ‘The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918-19’, History Ireland, Issue No 2, March-April, 2000. Dorney, John, Ireland and the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918, in www.theirish story.com-irelandandgreatflu-epidemicof1918/19
41. SR, 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 November, 7, 16, 21, 28 December 1918; 18 January 1919.
42. SR, 2 March, 17 August, 14 September, 2, 23 November, 1918. See list of contributors in SR, 12 January, 30 March, 7 September, 23 November 1918. One generous subscriber was Mr John Power, Superintendent of Customs at Macao in South China, who sent a cheque of £10 in 1918 and £14 in 1917 for distribution among the returned prisoners of war from West Clare. His wife of Ivy Cottage, Kilrush, distributed the money at Christmas, (SR, 21 December 1918). For a summary of Red Cross contributions see Margaret Downes, ‘The civilian voluntary aid effort’, in Fitzpatrick, David (ed.), Ireland and the First World War (Dublin: The Lilliput Press and Trinity History Workshop, 1988), p.32, Table 6.
43. SR, 9 November 1918.
44. SR, 4 October 1919; David Fitzpatrick, Politics and Irish Life, 1913-21 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1988), p.65.
45. www.ae2.org.au/wheat-john-harrison-able-seaman-ran-7681.
46. www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firdtworldwar/battles/esopotamia.htm; also, miscellaneous images and www.winkleleighheroes.co.uk/level3/kutdeathmarch.htm.
47. Fred Perry’s letters and prison diary, courtesy of Emily Tuohy Fitzpatrick, The Crescent, Lucan, Co. Dublin, granddaughter of Fred Perry. My thanks also to Eric Shaw, Clare Castle for bringing t
his source to my attention.
48. SR, 21 December 1918, 15 February 1919. The recruiting office was located at 32 Church Street, now Abbey Street, Ennis. See Brian Spring, A Broad History of a Narrow Street (Ennis: Clare Roots Society, 2013), p.40.
49. SR, 19 April, 31 May, 1919. Mr McElroy specifically thanked Lord and Lady Inchiquin; V. Revd John Scanlan, PP; Mrs Silles, Kilrush; Lady Fitzgerald, Carrigoran and Mrs Vere O’Brien for their generosity and assistance.
50. SR, 21 December 1918.
51. SR, 19 January, 27 April, 25 May, 26 May, 22 June, 20 July, 3 August, 7 September and 5 October 1918; and 8 November 1919; www.clarechampion.ie/briefhistory. I am grateful to Mr John Galvin, general manager of the Clare Champion for the information on Nurse Nellie Galvin. For information on Mary O’Connell Bianconi, see Hehir, James, Lack School and People (City? Blurb Books, 2012), chapter on John O’Connell Bianconi; also www.waterfordtoday.ie/4121-commemoration; and www.wit.ie/dept of nursing and healthcare.
52. Based on lists compiled and published by Browne, Burnell, and McCarthy, op. cit. passim.
53. Hardy, Thomas, ‘And There Was a Great Calm (On the signing of the Armistice, 11 November 1918)’, poem cited in Kendall, Tim, Poetry of the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp.12-13.
7
IN MEMORIAM
Though the victims and survivors of the Great War were remembered by their families, that was largely a private grief. Most of those who died are buried far away from home in places such as Belgium, France, Turkey, or further afield and many have no known grave at all. So most of the people could not easily visit the graves of their family members, as it was too costly. There was no official commemoration of the fallen in the new Free State. The Protestant churches did make some efforts to commemorate the dead, with memorial plaques and stained-glass windows in many churches in memory of the fallen.
