Remembering the Dead of World War 1

The knock on the front door was unusual.  After all, the half door was always open and the neighbours never knocked.  As she went to the door the woman of the house caught a glimpse of the uniformed telegraph boy standing outside.  Her heart sank for she knew that he brought bad news just as he had to some of her neighbours since the start of the war.  Those same neighbours were now gathering at her door, even as the telegraph boy passed over the telegram.  As she feared the telegram from the war office read: ‘Deeply regret to inform you that your husband died of wounds on June 28^th.  Lord Kitchener expresses his sympathy.’

 

The scene is an imaginary one, but in reality it was a scene re-enacted more than 100 times in the laneways and courtyards of Athy during the years of the 1914-18 war.  The dreaded telegram was delivered to so many local houses during the 52 months of the war that neighbours readily recognised the scene even as it evolved.  Sometimes the telegraph boy retraced his steps to the same house, not just twice but sadly in at least one case, three times.  The Kelly brothers of Chapel Lane were to die fighting another nation’s war.  Encouraged by local Church and civic leaders brothers Denis, John and Owen Kelly enlisted in the British Expeditionary Force to fight overseas where they died. 

In many instances local men starved of employment and weary of the unsanitary and claustrophobic conditions in which they lived gave their names to the local recruiting sergeant in Leinster Street.  They would after all be home by Christmas, or so they were told.  The excitement of travel to foreign lands, pride in wearing a smart uniform and of course, the army pay, no doubt played a part in prompting the large scale enlistment of men from Athy and district.  Perhaps even the promise of Home Rule played its part in encouraging many to join the ranks. 

Later, as those who survived the war returned to their home town, their late comrades, the majority of whom had no known burial places, would be forgotten and overlooked by the general public and also by local church and civic leaders.  Those who had encouraged recruitment now kept silent in the face of Sinn Fein’s rise in popularity.  The pre war politics of the Irish Parliamentary Party had been overtaken by the political dominance of Sinn Fein.  The local men who fought in France and Flanders and further afield were no longer war heroes.  Their return to Athy was not marked by parades led by local bands as was their departure from the local railway station a few short years before.

The returning ex-soldiers would of necessity keep a low profile, apart from honouring their dead comrades once a year on Remembrance Sunday.  But even that limited homage to the dead was not deemed appropriate to continue far beyond the election of the first Fianna Fáil government in 1932.  The families of ex British soldiers of the 1914-18 war may have grieved privately and commemorated loved ones within family circles.  Nowhere however was there any public recognition for those local men who responded to the call to arms and in so many cases answered with their young lives. 

I have in the past expressed the view that we can remember our neighbours of long ago without in any way feeling that we are doing a disservice to what we ourselves believe.  Whether you are a republican, a socialist or simply a political party member, commemorating the war dead of your town is not only a tribute to the young men of a past generation but also a mark of your respect for your town’s history.

Sunday the 10^th of November is Remembrance Sunday, the one day in the year when the dead of World War I are commemorated.  Here in Athy six soldiers who died in their home town and are buried in St. Michael’s Old Cemetery will be the focus of a Remembrance Sunday ecumenical commemoration service to take place at 3.00 p.m.  The service, which will remember all the local men who died in World War 1, is not intended as a celebration of war but as a commemoration for a lost generation and an acknowledgement of the years of neglect of those men who died during the war as well as those who survived. 

Local men’s participation in the 1914-18 war is a part of our local and national history and in remembering those men we are recognising their contribution to their communities and the losses sustained by their families.  An open invitation is extended to everyone to join in the commemoration service at St. Michael’s Old Cemetery at 3.00 p.m. on Sunday next, 10^th November.

No doubt many of you were puzzled to read of Mrs. Anna Duthie of 30 Duke Street.  I’m afraid Homer nodded yet again as of course Duthie’s jewellery shop has always been at 30 Leinster Street.

World War 1 - Victims and Survivors

World War I has got our attention over the past few weeks with the Irish media giving plenty of attention to the subject which went largely unnoticed up to a decade or so ago.  Athy has more reasons than any other Irish town to remember the 1914-18 war.  In fact it has 122 reasons.  For 122 Athy men, mostly young men, died in that war.  Their families mourn their deaths, but for at least 40 of those who died there was to be no known last resting place.  Their names chiselled on war memorials are the only reminder of short lives once lived in a small provincial town in County Kildare.  These forgotten men are the reason why in this the centenary year of the start of the Great War we commemorate their lives.

Men like Christopher Power of 8 Plewman’s Row who was killed in action in France on 26^th April 1915.  At 59 years of age he was the oldest Athy man to die in the war.  Power was survived by his wife Esther and three children.  His namesake, Christopher Power of William Street, was just 22 years old when he died of wounds received in battle on 28^th April, 1916.  Both men served in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

At the other end of the age scale we find 17 year old Anthony Byrne of the Leinster Regiment who was killed on 28^th April 1915.  Christopher Gleeson of Upper William Street was also 17 years old when he died in France on 1^st May 1916.

I was reminded of these men and of the other World War I soldiers from Athy when William Walsh of Lusk, County Dublin called on me during the week.  William at 80 years of age is the son of an Athy father whose name he proudly bears.  William Walsh, the father, lived with his father, brothers and sisters at No. 5 Janeville Lane in 1911.  The head of the family at the time of the 1911 census was John Walsh, aged 55 years of age, who in 1901 lived with his wife and family at 13 Offaly Street.  That house, still standing, was next to the malt house and in later years was occupied by the Keatleys. 

John Walsh was a tailor in Meeting Lane whose father Brian Walsh originated from Kilkenny but came to live in Athy when he married.  William Walsh, his grandson, enlisted in the Leinster Regiment in November 1911 as a member of the 4^th (Extra Reserve) battalion based in Maryborough.  It was usual in 1911 to join the Special Reserve for an initial period of six years, the first six months of which was spent in full time training.  Thereafter, unless called upon for active service, the enlistee was required to attend training for three to four weeks a year.

Called up as a reservist on the declaration of War William Walsh landed in France on 25^th October 1914 as a member of the Leinster Regiment 2^nd Battalion.  He was present at the Christmas truce in 1914 when German and English soldiers laid down their arms on Christmas Day and mingled with each other before returning to the trenches.

William Walsh, who survived the war, spoke of how he was fortunate to survive a German artillery attack which killed four of his colleagues just after he had left the trench where they had been resting.  He was also involved in the first battle of Ypres, which in October 1914 resulted in heavy casualties for the Leinster Regiment.

The Athy soldier who on demobilisation lived in Dublin, spent two years working with the Dublin tram company driving the Tram 21 which travelled between College Green and Inchicore, Dublin.  He later worked in Guinnesses.  His brother Joseph also joined the British Army during the 1914-18 war but took the wise decision on returning home on leave not to return to the battle front.  Joseph later lived at No. 2 Dooley’s Terrace.  A younger brother Edward was the father of John, Eamonn, Helen and Myra Walsh, all of whom still are living in Athy.  The story of William Walsh, World War I veteran, was told to me by his son William whom I had the pleasure to meet with his daughter Ann-Marie and his son -in-law this week.

There are so many stories to be told of the Athy men who fought in the 1914-18 war.  Unfortunately for 122 of those men their stories can never be told.  All we know is of their deaths and sometimes of their burials in graves maintained by the Commonwealth Grave Commission.  But for so many men from our town, young and middle aged, there is nothing but names chiselled into the stone of foreign war memorials.  Their names are recalled, but not the short lives they lived or the families they left behind.  They are part of our hidden past.                          

World War 1 and Athy

The first World War marked a change in the nature of war.It also marked the return to foreign battlefields of the fighting Irish. Mons, Gallipoli, Ypres, Somme, Passchendaele were but some of those battlefields where many of the Irishmen who died in battle sunk into the mud, their bodies never to be recovered.  Upwards of 35,000 Irishmen died during the 1914-18 war.Their story and those of  Irishmen who returned home, many shattered in mind and body, is now at last being told.  The men who enlisted in huge numbers following Kitchener’s call for volunteers were on an adventure which they were confidently assured would be over by Christmas 1914.

It was not to be, outflanked by the Germans at Mons the British and French armies dug in and soon a 475 mile long line of trenches stretched across France and Belgium. This was a war which was fought between men in trenches, the essence of which involved attempts to break the stalemate by going over the top.  It meant almost certain death as thousands of men, initially reservists, and professional soldiers and later volunteers stumbled across barbed wire in no man’s land in a desperate attempt to advance into enemy held territory. It was stalemated slaughter.

On the first day that men went over the top at the Somme, the British army suffered 60,000 casualties including approximately 19,000 dead.  This was the heaviest one day loss in British Military history.Massive artillery barrages and the use of gas poison from early 1915 added to the frightening experience facing Irishmen who a few months previously had seldom travelled beyond the limits of their home towns or villages.

These were the Irishmen who were encouraged by their home town church and civic leaders to volunteer to fight abroad. Many as members of the Irish Volunteers formed in Athy on 9^th May 1914 in Castledermot eight days later and in Kilcullen on 1^st July 1914 answered the call to arms by their leader John Redmond.

Support for Home Rule, the operation of which was suspended for the duration of the war, prompted many Irish men to joined the British Expeditionary Force. Even without Redmond’s encouragement many young men quickly committed themselves on hearing Kitchener’s call for volunteers. The excitement of travel abroad, the glamour of a uniform, the fact that most people supported the war and by no means least, the generous separation allowances paid for wives and children proved persuasive to young men for whom a life of unemployment and poor living conditions was the everyday alternative.

The British Army  mobilised over 9 million soldiers of which over 900,000 died during the war. The figures for Irish men serving in the British army are in the order of 250,000 of which approximately 35,000 died.

Of the Irishmen who returned from the war, their memories were for the most part to remain untold and unrecorded.  The Irish political landscape had changed during their absence. The 1916 Rising and the subsequent execution of its leaders culminated in the overwhelming success of the Sinn Fein party in the general election of November 1918.  The Irish public’s support for the war had dissipated long before that election and the drive for Irish political independence sidelined the soldiers who had fought overseas. Their stories, their memories were irrelevant to a people to whom the British uniform signified the enemy.

Despite this Remembrance Sunday ceremonies were held by the ex soldiers and comrade halls were built during the 1920’s as social centres for the men of the Great War. However the election of the first Fianna Fail government in 1932 marked a major shift in Ireland’s politics and so marked the beginning of the end of widespread remembrance day commemorations in Ireland. The men of 1914-18 forgotten in the drive for independence in the post treaty period now felt further isolated as their country entered into the economic war with Great Britain. Their involvement in the 1914-18 war was not regarded as part of our shared history.

Such was the position throughout the 1940s, the ‘50s and the ‘60s.

In 1988 in Athy from where so many men had enlisted a few friends organised a Remembrance Sunday ceremony in the local cemetery.  It was the first time in almost 55 years that the south Kildare town had publicly acknowledged the contribution of a previous generation of Athy men.  It was some years later before the Irish publics attitude to World War 1 remembrance began to change. That change  in attitude, I believe was largely due to one man, Kevin Myers, Irish Times journalist and columnist, who persistently wrote of the Irishmen’s involvement in the Great War. It was Kevin Myers who brought the forgotten story of Irishmen’s involvement in that war to the attention of the Irish public. His work led to others taking an interest in that overlooked part of our shared history. Today as we approach the centenary of the start of the Great War the Irish nation can be said to have at last acknowledged and to have honoured, as is their due, the men and women who suffered the horrors and the slaughter which marked  the 1914-18 war.

World War I and South Kildare

On Sunday, 10th November, a short ceremony will take place in St. Michael’s Cemetery at 3.00 o’clock in the afternoon. Its purpose will be to remember those local men who died in World War I on what will be the 84th anniversary of the end of that war.

There is no truly accurate account of the worldwide casualties suffered during the conflict which started in August 1914 and ended in November 1918. The number of men and women killed or injured will never be known as compiling records during warfare was understandably never easy. The best records available to us indicate that in excess of 8½ million men were killed in action or died of wounds or gas poisoning during the 52 months of the war. A staggering 21 million or so men were wounded. There was not a town or village in Ireland which did not contribute some measure of its youthful generation to the grim slaughter which was the Great War.

County Kildare suffered a loss of at least 567 men whose deaths are recorded, while the south Kildare area sustained proportionately greater losses than the rest of the county. Over the years I have often written of Athy men who died in the 1914/18 war, but it was not until this year when I visited Flanders that I came to realise the magnitude of the human slaughter which we rather oddly refer to as The Great War. There was nothing great about the war cemeteries which pitted the Flanders landscape with stone memorials to the dead. The regularity with which one came across war cemeteries was frankly upsetting, while the small Commonwealth grave markers over each grave bore testimony to the sad and awesome harvest of death reaped during the war.

Following the war, here and there throughout Ireland local committees compiled lists of soldiers from their area who had been killed. In Castledermot such a list was compiled, while I have in front of me a Roll in Honour of those from Longford town and county who fell in the Great War. I have mentioned in previous articles that the Urban District Council of the time agreed to compile a list of Athy men who fought in the War. The list if it was ever compiled was not published and indeed a record of the soldiers from this area who served in the War has not survived.

There were few Athy families unaffected by the War and while I have identified about 105 townsmen and a further 83 men from the Athy rural area who died in World War I, no doubt my list is incomplete. Who recalls Edward Conlon of Brackna, a private in the Leinster Regiment who died at sea on Sunday, 20th October 1918. William Corrigan, a Private in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers was another unlucky Athy man killed in the last days of the war on 14th October 1918. Alfred Coyle from Nicholastown was only 22 years old when he died from gas poisoning on 21st August, 1917. Was he any relation of Thomas Coyle of Nurney aged 28 years who was killed in action at St. Quintin in France on 25th August 1918?

The story of Andrew Delaney of Crookstown who died of gas poisoning in Netley Hospital on 31st May 1915 forms part of the World War I display in the local Heritage Centre. A married man, his body was brought home for burial in the local cemetery. He is the only World War I casualty in the Crookstown cemetery, although the former Parish Priest, Fr. Stafford, who was an army chaplain during the war is also buried there. I have been trying for a long time to get information on Fr. Stafford, and would welcome hearing from anyone who could help me. Was Andrew Delaney in any way related to William Delaney, also of Crookstown who was killed in France on 13th March 1916?

The list of names of Athy men killed in the war is like a role call of present day families in the area. Alcock, Bell, Byrne, Connell, Corcoran, Corrigan, Coyle, Cullen, Curtis, Delaney, Devoy, Dillon, Dooley. The list goes on and on, all the time recalling the local family names with which we are so well acquainted.

Earlier this year in company with teachers and students from Wellington College, New Zealand I visited war graves and battle sites in France and Flanders. On looking over the names of the war dead from Athy and district I was intrigued to find one man who had enlisted in the First Battalion of the Wellington Regiment from New Zealand. He was Gilbert Kelly known to his friends as Bertie who was killed in action on 25th September 1916. He was from Ballintubbert and being a Kelly was quite possibly a descendent of Rev. Thomas Kelly who founded the Kellyites in the early years of the 19th century. Bertie Kelly had emigrated to New Zealand but even there he could not avoid the conflict which was raging in Europe. The chances of war in all probability brought him into contact with other men from his hometown of Athy. It was the Battle of the Somme which ultimately claimed Kelly’s life as it did so many others whose early years had been spent in the fields around south Kildare.

Last week I mentioned the Memorial which hopefully will soon be erected by the Town Council to commemorate the townspeoples’ part in the 1798 Rebellion. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful gesture if the Council erected a Memorial to the generation of Athy men who over 80 years ago lost their lives in World War I. It would be a timely gesture and one which would go some way to redressing the awfully sad way in which mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters felt compelled to mourn in private their loved ones who were for so long written out of Irish history.

I can recall it was nine years ago that Athy Museum Society hosted a seminar in the Town Hall on World War I, with particular reference to its impact on County Kildare. It was probably the first time that an Irish provincial town had commemorated its World War dead in that way. Kevin Myers of the Irish Times said at the time “it does no disservice to our nation or what we believe in that we should remember the World War I dead here today”. How right he was and how right it is that we should not forget the men whose last view of Athy was from a train pulling out of the railway station on the first leg of a journey which would end in a foreign grave.

Next Sunday at 3.00pm some of us will gather in St. Michael’s cemetery to remember the young men who lost their lives in World War I. I hope you can join us.

April/May 1915 - World War I

This week the people of Dublin have as their greatest worry the sorry state of public transport in the Capital, while their neighbours in County Kildare share worries and concerns of even more mundane nature. Eighty five years ago both shared a common cause of concern as the Great War which had been confidently expected to end before Christmas 1914 rumbled on, with no sign of any early conclusion. In the town of Athy which had seen so many young men succumb to the blandishments of the local recruiting officer, concern was deeply felt amongst the families living in the lanes and alleyways of the ancient town. That concern was not misplaced.

Between 21st April and 31st May, 1915 twenty-seven men from the town of Athy were killed on the battlefields of the First World War. In the same period approximately 108 men from the town were wounded.

It is a startling figure when you consider that they died over a 35 day period. Some days were worse than others. Four were killed on 26th April. Three men lost their lives on both 30th April and 25th April. The remainders of those who died did so during the month of May 1915, the bloodiest month for Athy in all the four years of the Great War.

War had raged in Europe since August 1914 but the opposing armies entrenched and facing each other across the battle lines of France and Belgium were stalemated. The Allies planned to break the deadlock with an attack on Turkey by means of an assault at Gallipoli in the South-West of the country. On 25th April the steam collier the River Clyde stood off the shores of Gallipoli. Within its hold among many regiments was the 1st Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, whose home barracks was at Naas. The regiments consisted mainly of men drawn from Dublin City and the County of Kildare.

That same morning, its sister Battalion, the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, was formed up in the trenches near the town of Ypres in Belgium. Both battalions were to attack enemy positions later that same day.

At daybreak the men of Kildare in the Dublin Fusiliers cooped up in the hold of the River Clyde launched themselves onto the Beach at Cape Helles in Gallipoli. They were met by the devastating fire power of the Turkish Army who, forewarned of the proposed landing, had brought up reinforcements. One Officer wrote :-

`The boats came in, they were met by a perfect tornado of fire, many men were killed and wounded in the boats, and wounded men were knocked over into the water and drowned, but they kept on, and the survivors jumped into the water in some cases up to their necks, and got ashore; but the slaughter was terrific’.

The men from Athy were lucky, although many were wounded, none would die that day. Five days later in defending the beachhead from a ferocious counter-attack by the Turks, John Farrell, Christopher Hanlon and Larry Kelly, all from Athy, were killed.

On that same day as the River Clyde steamed into Cape Helles the men of the first battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers marched in the early hours of the morning to the outskirts of the Belgian town of Ypres. The march by the heavily armed men was an extraordinary achievement. They struggled on the cobbled Belgian roads in the dark, burdened with all the trapping of an infantryman but still managed to march 30 miles to reach their intended positions. At 6.30am with the morning still shrouded in mist, the men of the Dublin Fusiliers left their trenches with the objective of capturing the town of St. Julien. Advancing in parade ground fashion towards the German trenches they were mowed down by the intense German machine gun fire. The Dublin Fusiliers suffered 510 casualties that morning.

Among the dead were Athy men William Supple, Moses Doyle, and Martin Halloran. Martin Halloran was a Sergeant with the Dublin Fusiliers. The Kildare Observer on the 10th July, 1915 published a description of the fighting at St. Julien by James Rogers, a soldier from Naas. Rogers who was severely wounded himself reported that Sergeant Halloran who had served in the regiment before the war had both his legs blown off by a shell during the German bombardment.

On the following day the German artillery went into action. In the ensuing bombardment Joseph Byrne, James Dillon, Christopher Power and Patrick Tierney, all from Athy were killed. Owen Kelly from Mount Hawkins, Athy was seriously wounded in this action and died of his wounds in a French Hospital on the 3rd May. His brother John Kelly serving with the Leinster Regiment in France would be killed in action almost three weeks later. The loss for the Kelly family at home in Athy would be compounded by the death in action of another of their sons, Denis Kelly of the Leinster Regiment. Denis died on 30th September, 1918, six weeks before the Great War came to an end.

It is difficult for us nowadays to imagine the devastation and loss felt at the time by parents and families in Athy as news of local mens’ deaths in April and May of 1915 filtered back to the town. What is certain is that the initial enthusiasm that had existed for enlisting in the Army quickly dissipated.

Frank Laird, an officer in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who was wounded in Gallipoli found himself on a recruiting drive in Kildare in 1916. Recruitment meetings were regularly held in Naas, Athy and Castledermot. He described the meetings as being large with imposing platforms of speakers. However, they met with little success. He did not feel aggrieved at this lack of success. As Laird put it :-

`To do Kildare justice it should be said that many parts, such as Naas and Athy in particular had already sent a noble proportion of volunteers to the front’.

The social and economic life of Athy did not easily recover from the losses suffered during the four years of the First World War. Indeed it might well be claimed with some justification that the consequences of the loss of so many local men effected successive generations to the extent that the social equilibrium of the town has never recovered. It’s an interesting thesis and one to which I propose to return at another time.

World War 1

It’s that time of year again. No, not Christmas, rather the time set aside by people around the world to remember those lost in the carnage of World War I. Here in Athy we have more reason than others to remember that awful time over eighty years ago when young men rushed or walked to their deaths across the muddy ground which was Flanders fields.

Those young men came from rural or small town backgrounds and joined the British Army in their hundreds for reasons which we can never satisfactorily explain. Was it the prospect of wearing a smart uniform which first caught their attention? Was it the opportunity of shedding the perennial unemployment status which drove the Athy men into the recruiting station in Leinster Street? Perhaps the opportunity to go overseas, even in war time, was to many who had never gone further than the nearest village the reason they enlisted in such numbers. Maybe the answer is to be found in all of these possibilities, coupled with a manly and courageous response to a call for arms in aid of beleaguered Belgium.

For whatever reason almost half a million Irishmen fought in World War I at a time when their own country was nearing the end of it’s 800 years of subjugation to English Rule. Indeed some historians would claim that many of those men joined up in the belief that Home Rule would be granted to a thirty-two county Ireland at the end of the hostilities.

All of this fades into insignificance when we review the high number of Irishmen, believed to be in excess of 36,000 who died during the Great War. The effect their deaths had on communities throughout Ireland has never been properly assessed, but even now it may be claimed that this country is still unable to divest itself of the social problems which followed in the wake of that War.

For the town of Athy and District the loss of 188 men over the period 1914 to 1918 could only have had a most depressing effect on the psyche of the area. Accentuating this was the large number of badly injured men, pensioned off after the war, who remained for decades a constant reminder of those terrible days.

It is difficult to grasp the enormity of the losses suffered by some families whose fathers, husbands or brothers were never to return alive or dead. Their bodies were never recovered, being buried as they lay in the mud of Flanders or France. The families they had left behind in Athy were never to have the consolation of mourning at the graveside of their loved ones.

During the War the uniformed postboy who delivered telegrams at one time or other came to every street and lane in Athy. In his hand was invariably clutched the dreaded message which informed the next of kin of another death on a European battlefield. Sadly several local families received the awful news not once, but twice. Last April I received a letter from 90 year old Mae Vagts of Washington, U.S.A., daughter of Edward Stafford of Butlers Row. She recalled her father who had enlisted in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, leaving his house for the last time to walk to the railway station in Athy where he was joining other local men on the first leg of a journey which would end in France. Edward was killed in action on 24th September, 1914, leaving a widow and three young children, Mae, George and Tommy. Strangely his son Tommy died on the same day as his father 74 years later. Mrs. Stafford later re-married Paddy Shaughnessy and their son Danny died within the last year.

The telegram which was delivered to Butler’s Row announcing Edward Stafford’s death was to be followed by a second telegram when his brother Thomas, a lance corporal in the Dublin Fusiliers was also killed in France on 6th September, 1916. The Heydon family in Churchtown also lost two sons, Patrick, killed in France on 4th September, 1914 and Aloysius killed on 27th November, 1917. Brothers John Hannon and Norman Leslie Hannon of Ardreigh House also died in the War. Norman was 20 years of age when he was killed at Festubert on 16th May, 1915 while John was 24 years old when he died on 18th August, 1916.

On three separate occasions the messenger of death came to the houses of two local families during the Great War. Mr. And Mrs. Kelly of Mount Hawkins suffered the loss of son Owen on 3rd May, 1915 and 20 days later the loss of their other son John. A third son Dennis died of his wounds in France on 3rd September, 1918.

Jack and Margaret Curtis of Rockfield like the Kellys of Mount Hawkins also lost three sons in the War. Patrick was killed in France on 5th November, 1914 while his brother John was killed in action on 9th January, 1917 and his brother Lawrence died of his wounds on 4th December, 1917. Just before Christmas 1995 I received a letter from their niece, Mrs. J. Watts of Northold in Middlesex who as a young girl had worked in Hutchinsons Hotel in Leinster Street. She is a reader of “Eye on the Past” and in the course of a very nice letter thanked me for remembering the young men from Athy who died in the Great War. “You are the first person to mention them” she wrote which I felt was a somewhat sad indictment of the local townspeoples’ neglect of an important part of their own history.

On Sunday, 9th November a small group of local men and women gathered in St. Michael’s Cemetery to remember those forgotten men from Athy who died so young and so tragically during the 1914/18 War. In doing so they were publicly recalling the worst days in the history of warfare and possibly the most tragic four years in the long history of our Town. At the same time they helped recover from oblivion the memory of those local men who died in previous wars, especially the 1914/18 War. Their generous action serves to remind the people of Athy that Nationalists of whatever hue do no disservice to what they believe in by remembering their own dead.

World War 1 and Athy Dead

This November the men whose lives were brutally cut short on World War I battlefields are remembered as they have been for the last 76 years. The events of a generation now long passed could so easily be overlooked by the present were it not for the very real links we have with that War. Athy like many other towns and villages in Ireland paid a heavy price in the conflict which started on the 4th of August, 1914 and ended on the 11th of November 1918. During that period approximately 35,000 Irish men were killed, an average of 158 Irish men every week or 23 men every single day. Those men, all old enough to wear an Army uniform but too young to die, perished in the slaughter which was the Great War.

Britain declared war on Germany on the 4th of August, 1914 and the first troops of the British Expeditionary Force began landing at La Havre and Boulogne on Sunday, the 9th of August. On Thursday, the 1st of September William Corcoran, Army No. 4523, a Lance Corporal in the First Battalion Irish Guards was killed. He was a native of Athy and so far as I can find was the first of the many Athy men who were to die before Armistice Day in November 1918.

567 men from County Kildare died in the War. The greater number came from the South Kildare town of Athy and the surrounding district. Ireland’s War Memorials published in eight volumes lists the details of all Irish men killed in the War but included many non-Irish men who had enlisted in Irish Regiments and others who were included because they had names which were considered likely to indicate an Irish background. Recent research by Pat Casey of the Western Front Association confirms the Irish dead at approximately 35,000 and not the 49,000 or so included in the War Memorials.

The story of the War is one of unremitting death but even in the charged atmosphere of the time the month of April 1915 stands out as being particularly horrific. Gallipoli and Ypres, names familiar to every student of military history were the centres of fierce fighting that month which resulted in the death of 72 men from County Kildare. The names of the some of the Athy men who died that month reads like a litany of the living:- Joe Byrne and Anthony Byrne, William Wall, John Farrell, Christopher Hannon, Larry Kelly, James Dillon, Moses Doyle, Patrick Leonard, Christopher Power, Patrick Tierney, the list goes on and on. Upwards of 200 men from Athy and district died in the War and the dreaded War Office telegram which heralded death or if one was lucky an injury which offered temporary respite from the rigours of war left Athy Post Office with chilling regularity. To receive one such telegram announcing the death of a beloved son was a heartbreaking experience but what of the mothers who received two such telegrams or as in at least two known cases lost three sons in the war.

Athy man Eddie Stafford died on the 24th of September, 1914 just one month into the War. His brother Tommy was to join him in death on the 6th of September, 1916. Brothers Joe and Anthony Byrne of Chapel Lane were to die within two days of each other in April 1915. Joe who was a Sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers was killed in action in France on the 26th of April and on the 28th of April his brother Anthony, a Private in the Leinster Regiment, was also killed.

The Kelly family of Meeting Lane lost three sons in the war. On the 23rd of May, 1915 John Kelly, a Private in the Leinster Regiment with the regimental number 3636 died of wounds in France. His brother Owen also in the Leinster Regiment with the regimental number 3626 was killed in action on the 1st of May, 1915. Clearly they had joined the regiment on the same day as evidenced by their regimental numbers. Their younger brother Denis later joined the same Regiment despite the pleas of his distraught mother who had already lost two sons. She followed him to the railway station on the day she heard of his intention to enlist and in vain searched the train for her son. As it pulled out of the station she stood on the platform in tears probably realising as only a mother can that she was to lose another son. Denis was to die on the 30th of September 1918.

Another local family to suffer the loss of three sons was the Curtis family of Kilcrow. Patrick Curtis, a Private in the Irish Guards was killed in action on the 5th of November, 1914. His brother John, an acting bombardier in the Field Artillery was killed on the 9th of January, 1917. Their brother Laurence a Private in the Irish Lancers died of wounds on the 4th of December, 1917.

The dead of the 1914-1918 War are to some just names on paper but to others they represent the generation which lost its youth as brave young men went to War in a cause which was to unite families in grief. For too long we pushed to one side their memory forgetting that bravery wears many uniforms. Their life sacrifices must always be a constant reminder to us of how our neighbours suffered, why are neighbours grieved and why their dead must always be remembered.

World War 1 and Athy

This November the men whose lives were brutally cut short on World War I battlefields are remembered as they have been for the last 76 years. The events of a generation now long passed could so easily be overlooked by the present were it not for the very real links we have with that War. Athy like many other towns and villages in Ireland paid a heavy price in the conflict which started on the 4th of August, 1914 and ended on the 11th of November 1918. During that period approximately 35,000 Irish men were killed, an average of 158 Irish men every week or 23 men every single day. Those men, all old enough to wear an Army uniform but too young to die, perished in the slaughter which was the Great War.

Britain declared war on Germany on the 4th of August, 1914 and the first troops of the British Expeditionary Force began landing at La Havre and Boulogne on Sunday, the 9th of August. On Thursday, the 1st of September William Corcoran, Army No. 4523, a Lance Corporal in the First Battalion Irish Guards was killed. He was a native of Athy and so far as I can find was the first of the many Athy men who were to die before Armistice Day in November 1918.

567 men from County Kildare died in the War. The greater number came from the South Kildare town of Athy and the surrounding district. Ireland’s War Memorials published in eight volumes lists the details of all Irish men killed in the War but included many non-Irish men who had enlisted in Irish Regiments and others who were included because they had names which were considered likely to indicate an Irish background. Recent research by Pat Casey of the Western Front Association confirms the Irish dead at approximately 35,000 and not the 49,000 or so included in the War Memorials.

The story of the War is one of unremitting death but even in the charged atmosphere of the time the month of April 1915 stands out as being particularly horrific. Gallipoli and Ypres, names familiar to every student of military history were the centres of fierce fighting that month which resulted in the death of 72 men from County Kildare. The names of the some of the Athy men who died that month reads like a litany of the living:- Joe Byrne and Anthony Byrne, William Wall, John Farrell, Christopher Hannon, Larry Kelly, James Dillon, Moses Doyle, Patrick Leonard, Christopher Power, Patrick Tierney, the list goes on and on. Upwards of 200 men from Athy and district died in the War and the dreaded War Office telegram which heralded death or if one was lucky an injury which offered temporary respite from the rigours of war left Athy Post Office with chilling regularity. To receive one such telegram announcing the death of a beloved son was a heartbreaking experience but what of the mothers who received two such telegrams or as in at least two known cases lost three sons in the war.

Athy man Eddie Stafford died on the 24th of September, 1914 just one month into the War. His brother Tommy was to join him in death on the 6th of September, 1916. Brothers Joe and Anthony Byrne of Chapel Lane were to die within two days of each other in April 1915. Joe who was a Sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers was killed in action in France on the 26th of April and on the 28th of April his brother Anthony, a Private in the Leinster Regiment, was also killed.

The Kelly family of Meeting Lane lost three sons in the war. On the 23rd of May, 1915 John Kelly, a Private in the Leinster Regiment with the regimental number 3636 died of wounds in France. His brother Owen also in the Leinster Regiment with the regimental number 3626 was killed in action on the 1st of May, 1915. Clearly they had joined the regiment on the same day as evidenced by their regimental numbers. Their younger brother Denis later joined the same Regiment despite the pleas of his distraught mother who had already lost two sons. She followed him to the railway station on the day she heard of his intention to enlist and in vain searched the train for her son. As it pulled out of the station she stood on the platform in tears probably realising as only a mother can that she was to lose another son. Denis was to die on the 30th of September 1918.

Another local family to suffer the loss of three sons was the Curtis family of Kilcrow. Patrick Curtis, a Private in the Irish Guards was killed in action on the 5th of November, 1914. His brother John, an acting bombardier in the Field Artillery was killed on the 9th of January, 1917. Their brother Laurence a Private in the Irish Lancers died of wounds on the 4th of December, 1917.

The dead of the 1914-1918 War are to some just names on paper but to others they represent the generation which lost its youth as brave young men went to War in a cause which was to unite families in grief. For too long we pushed to one side their memory forgetting that bravery wears many uniforms. Their life sacrifices must always be a constant reminder to us of how our neighbours suffered, why are neighbours grieved and why their dead must always be remembered.