Clare and the Great War

by Joe Power

  Some of the members of Clare Castle GAA club were so enthusiastic for de Valera and Sinn Féin, that they organised a GAA sports meeting in aid of the de Valera election fund! Obviously, they ignored the GAA rule that the organisation was supposed to be non-political! Not everybody in this parish was happy with this support, however. When a republican flag was placed on the belfry of the chapel in Clare Castle, the parish priest, Canon Bourke, ordered it to be removed, and it was later burned by supporters of John Redmond’s party. Local republicans also put a flag on the chimney of the home of the local chairman of the Home Rule party, and, cheekily, put another flag on the chimney of the local RIC barracks.

  Advertisement for Clare Castle GAA Sports Meeting from Clare Journal, 28 September 1917.

  On Christmas night that December, the premises occupied by the Eamon O’Daly Sinn Féin Club at Clare Castle were broken into around midnight. Some tables and chairs were taken and thrown into the River Fergus. The local branch of the Home Rule Party condemned the action.

  Early in June republican flags were flown from the Kilmurry McMahon, Coolmeen, and Labasheeda parish churches, as well as from the chimneys of the Cranny, Coolmen and the Six Crosses National Schools, and from the dispensary of Six Crosses. The newspaper noted that the flags were flying for more than a week. This suggests that the priests of these parishes did not object to the placing of republican flags over the churches and over the schools, of which they were managers.31

  Meanwhile, the republicans of Clare became more active, drilling, getting more arms and carrying out manoeuvres. They were harassed by the authorities, who arrested and court-martialled some of the leaders, such as the Brennans of Meelick, Art O’Donnell of Tullycrine, and Hugh Hunt of Corofin. Some of these men were among the first republicans to go on hunger strike. On 10 November the Clare Champion published a letter from the Clare republican prisoners who were on hunger strike at Mountjoy, which included a list of the sixteen men involved stated that they had been forcibly fed at least thirteen times between 20 and 30 September.32

  Naturally, in these political circumstances it was difficult to promote a recruitment campaign for the Great War. With very poor timing, which shows how insensitive and incompetent the British authorities were, and how little they understood the Irish, a new recruitment campaign was begun during the middle of the East Clare by-election. A recruiting party of the Royal Munster Fusiliers toured the county seeking recruits. Unsurprisingly, there were few, if any, recruits on this occasion.

  The Roll of Honour continued to expand as many ‘gallant heroes’ met their deaths mainly on the Western Front. The Clare Journal and the Saturday Record noted the deaths and injuries in each issue, while the Clare Champion only mentioned more prominent victims. The Clare Champion also subtly showed its opposition to the war by publishing the total weekly casualty lists of officers, rank and file and ratings killed, wounded and missing in action for the entire British Army and navy. For instance, the issue of 14 July showed 4,714, killed and 19,188 wounded, missing or taken prisoner. After the death of Willie Redmond, MP, only the Saturday Record really promoted the war and continued to give extensive coverage to the different theatres of war. Bishop Fogarty grew more disillusioned with the war. He declared: ‘The world is sick of this accursed war! It is a useless massacre!’33

  A Battle for Equality

  While women in Britain and other countries were taking on many positions previously held by men due to the war, another battle was taking place in the courts for the right of females to be appointed to the position of petty sessions court clerk. Miss Georgiana Frost of Sixmilebridge sought the right to be appointed to the vacancy at Sixmilebridge and Newmarket-on-Fergus Petty Sessions Courts. She had been assisting her father in his duties as a petty sessions court clerk in these courts for three or four years. After his retirement she sought the appointment on Tuesday 13 July 1915. There was no other candidate for the position. She was proposed by Lord Inchiquin, seconded by Mr W.W.A. Fitzgerald and unanimously elected by the assembled Justices of the Peace.

  Mr McElroy, RM, the chairman said then that ‘her election was unprecedented and an historic occasion, as she was the first lady to be appointed to the position of petty sessions court clerk in Ireland’. He said that ‘great credit was due to the chivalry of the magistrates of Clare, the first in Ireland to set such an example’.

  However, there were legal objections and the case was taken to the High Court Dublin, where Mr Justice Barton ruled that Miss Frost ‘was incapable on account of her sex of holding the position’. He said that an Act of Parliament was required to allow women to do this work. Miss Frost took the case to the Court of Appeal, but it failed there too. She eventually won her case after an appeal to the House of Lords in April 1920 and the passage of an Act of Parliament. She retired in 1922 after her historic breakthrough as the first female petty sessions court clerk in the UK.34

  ‘From Somewhere in France’

  While some short letters from the Western Front were published in the local press over the previous couple of years, an Ennis priest, Fr Moran, who was a chaplain with the British Army in France, gave a comprehensive description of the horrors of trench warfare in 1917. The letter, dated 14 March, which was addressed to Councillor P.J. Linnane, JP, was published in both the Clare Champion and the Saturday Record.

  B.E.F. , France,

  14 March 1917

  My Dear Mr Linnane,

  I must sincerely apologise for not writing to you before now, but really, I haven’t had much time at my disposal, and I don’t like writing to a man of your calibre without a little previous reflection, not indeed that I have had much now, but yet, I have a clear two hours to myself, which haven’t been the same since 11th of January …

  Before touching on the state of affairs out here I must give expression to that which is nearest and dearest to my soul, viz., that our own dear country will before long enjoy the fruits of a fight, or better still, the differences that have been rife between the two countries for well-nigh 700 years. No doubt the Irish have been driven to desperate measures from time to time owing to a hard-hearted, prejudiced and un-sympathetic government. But, ethically speaking, good gives rise to evil at times, and so evil gives rise to good. Let us hope that the final good of our dear old country – at present on the threshold of achievement – will soon be a reality. I may tell you that the Irish out here are anxiously and patiently looking forward ‘to the brighter days to come’ for their dear land, as are we all.

  And now, a word about ‘the state of things in Denmark’, or more correctly, France. I must tell you that I have to be very careful about what I consign to paper, as I am the official censor of letters for the RAMC [Royal Army Medical Corps], to which I am attached, and some of the letters are re-censured at the base. Hence, the unit censor has to keep well within the line!

  The division that I came with came to France under the worst possible conditions – we had intense frost and snow for four weeks – the coldest weather experienced by the natives for twenty-two years; then came a thaw, which lasted for two days, followed by a downpour, which has enveloped us in oceans of mud. To give you a faint idea of the ground during the frost, I need only tell you that it used to take two men to open a grave, one grave about four feet deep. At present it does not take long to open a grave, as you can imagine, when I say in many places we have been up to our chests in mud and water, and very glad to have such places when the big shells are bursting round us. We have no regular trenches where we have been since we went into action – nothing but a series of shell holes. The whole sector that we are in is nothing but a ploughed garden, ploughed by shells – both German and English. Our division has been very unfortunate, indeed, as we have been put into the worst sector of the whole British front. You have read in the papers of the recent retirement of the Germans, so there goes!

  To be candid, their seeming retreat has been anything but good for us. We have been lured into seas of mud, roads etc. that are
utterly impassable. The result is while we are repairing or renovating the roads, they shell us fearfully – simply waves of shells swelling over us, some with effect and some without. The rear-guard fighting as you know is most difficult; hence the German morale is affected when we get up to them fast enough.

  The villages they have vacated are no gains to us in a certain sense. They blow up everything as they retreat and mine almost everything. Just a few examples of the devilry the Germans practice, the dug-outs they leave are all mined, so that when you go downstairs and step on the last step, up goes the whole place. This is quite common. In one dug-out they left a piano. A crowd of our lads rushed in and started to play, the keys were connected to a mine, so you know the result. Another case, they left a fountain pen and pencil in a dug-out on a sideboard; naturally, they were picked up. There was a detonator in each so a few chaps had their hands blown off. In another dug-out they left a fire ready to be set ablaze – but under the paper and bits of wood were several small bombs.

  The whole of France in occupation is just one big ploughed garden; nothing so desolate could be imagined; whole villages razed to the ground; in what was once was a prosperous village, nothing now remains to show that it was a village, except the church bell thrown on the ditch. I officiated in a ruined church some time ago, 600 present. I am told since that the ruined church is absolutely blotted out with shells.

  I was giving Holy Communion a few days ago to a number of chaps near the trenches. I had everything nicely laid out on top of a few shell boxes, and had actually begun to give Holy Communion, when a huge shell landed within ten yards from us. The force of the explosion was terrific. We ourselves got quite a shaking and of course we were covered all over with mud. This is only one little incident. I should be in the other world many a time out here, I am sure, were it not for the prayers of my kin and friends at home and abroad. I shall tell you of the many miraculous escapes I have had when I get my first leave.

  The French people we have met here are a very poor specimen. They are of the peasant type and no such thing among them as generosity. I have been refused a cup of water in a French house. But, of course, there is something to be said for them – armies going through their houses every day and asking for their out-houses for sleeping quarters etc. Sanitation in the French villages is awful, and religion in these parts is at a very low ebb – four or five people turn up to Mass out of a possible 400, or so the old cure [priest] told me.

  I started this letter a few days ago. This is St Patrick’s Eve and you’ll be glad to know that I got my shamrock three days ago. I’ve been writing it in fits and starts according as I was free. Hence, you will not be surprised at the want of logic that prevails. I just write down things in any order as they strike me and I think will be of interest to you. The scenes from day to day are indescribable. Just think of the following things. Thousands of dead and dying horses here and there mutilated in all shapes and forms; dead and dying men, lying overground for three months. I have buried men in no man’s land, who have been there for weeks and months, some there since last November. You find a head here and there – God knows where the rest of the man is. I pulled a chap out of a shell hole a few days ago and in his hand was a pipe and tobacco. He was killed while filling his pipe. Men are killed under all circumstances of time and place, for instance, in their dug-outs, in bed, at breakfast, when sitting down for a bit of food etc.

  The German dug-outs are marvellous, some fitted with electric light, telephones etc. I am writing this in what was a German dug-out a few weeks ago. Some of them are about 70 feet under the earth; this one is about 40 feet only.

  Another terrible trouble here is the rats, every place lined with them. They follow the ration wagon everywhere. They are a huge size and are as used to us – they walk over you in bed. And now, another word about the progress of the war. It is certainly a war of artillery and artillery will win it and not Peace Conferences. The British artillery is in some respects superior to the Germans, and for the one shell they send over to us, we send back twenty. At times, when the heavy guns begin to work the whole earth shakes for miles around. A fly could hardly live in the earth so intense is the fire. If the British keep on with the output of shells as they have been doing, I feel certain the Germans will have to keep on the move. According as the Germans retreat, they take maps and distances of the roads and dug-outs they have left behind. The result is that they shell all the roads that they think we use and all the crossroads. Of course we do the same, and always with different results. When they think troops are being relieved, or rations going up to the lines, they shell like the very mischief.

  Sniping is another part of the gruesome game. Do you know I’ve been burying chaps for nine days in a bit of a garden, and a German sniper was only about twenty yards from me all the time? He saw me all right, but, seeing me doing my job, saved me. I never saw him, but visited his dug-out after our fellows got him. We too have our snipers, who are every bit as good as the Germans. The best shot in the Gordon Highlanders is an Irish chap. As far as I see we are not by any means near the end of the war, but I am quite confident of the result.

  The weather today is very nice after a small frost, but the roads and gardens are something frightful with mud. I haven’t seen a blade of grass for ages and of course there is no cultivation of any kind going on here. It is a terrible thing to consider, in our supposed enlightened age of progress and science, that we can’t settle our differences in some other way than by shedding so much blood and cutting off the flower of all the nations engaged in this seemingly interminable war. To wake up these fine spring mornings amid the roar and crashing of shells (when we should be all as brothers) is something inconceivable to any ordinary intellect. But when people are abandoned by God then they can blame themselves and so it is at present. Nations for some years have disowned God and now He is leaving them to reflect and scourging them with a war that has been unexampled in the history of the world … the pity is that it should form part of the scheme of Providence to punish the innocent with the guilty; but it is inevitable and God’s ways are not our ways …

  This reads like a sermon, but I am soliloquising as I sit by a few bits of green wood, which I picked myself, trying to make a bit of fire. We do many things of this nature here and thank God to be spared for it.

  I have just got the paper from home. I have been astounded at some of the things which I read therein. I am sorry to see that Clare people are contributing to keeping alive the idea that we, Irish people, are unfit for self-government.

  I was very glad to see the resolution you put forward in regard to Lloyd George’s proposals, re spirits and beer in Ireland. If it were to be enforced it would certainly spell ruin for many thousands in Ireland.

  It is now 11.20 St Patrick’s Eve (I’ve had scores of interruptions while consigning these few ideas to paper) and I must finish whether I like it or not as my candle is on the point of winding up a well-spent career. The big guns are roaring just now all round us. You can’t possibly keep a light on when they get going properly – all lights are extinguished by the commission. Had I time, I would write you for weeks, but I hope to get ten days leave in the near future, with the help of God, and then I’ll be able to say many things that time doesn’t now permit me to write.

  With all good wishes to self and all family,

  Yours very sincerely,

  M Moran, CF35

  Fr Moran’s description of the ‘scorched earth’ policy carried out by the Germans is corroborated by Ernst Junger, a German officer, who described the destruction carried out by the Germans when they made a tactical retreat in 1917. This policy also demoralised the German soldiers:

  As far back as the Siegfried Line every village was reduced to rubble, every tree chopped down, every road undermined, every well poisoned, every basement blown up or booby-trapped, every rail rolled up, everything burnable burned; in a word we were turning the country that our enemies would occupy into a wasteland … th
e scenes were bad for the men’s morale … utter destruction does more harm than good to the destroyer and dishonours the soldier.36

  The Weather

  Undoubtedly, there was a growing food crisis in the country because of the war and there were fears of another famine. A summary of the weather at Carrigoran for this year, as reported in the Saturday Record of 19 January 1918 suggests that it was not conducive to good farming, with a very cold, dry spell in the early growing season up to April, and with exceptionally heavy rain in August and October, during the harvesting season:

  The rainfall of 1917 has been about four inches below the average for this locality, and this has been the first occasion since 1905 in which any notable deficiency has been recorded. But, owing to the unusual distribution of the rainfall, the disadvantages of the shortage have not been felt to any appreciable extent, as it was during the winter, or first four months of the year that the great variation occurred. The rainfall for these four months only amounted to about half of the normal at this time.

  Comment on the nature of rainfall during the end of summer and autumn months, would be almost needless, as the deluge of rain during that period will remain an unpleasant recollection for years to come; the rainfall for August being of an almost unprecedented character throughout the country.

  [Although the total rainfall for the month of August was recorded at 8.74 inches, this seems to have been concentrated in the middle and latter half of the month, as a report in the Saturday Record of 11 August commented favourably on the ‘spell of fine weather at Kilkee, which has had the effect of inducing a very large number of visitors to this peerless watering place, and most of the lodges are now in occupation, while all the hotels are crowded. The bathing places about the bay are patronised by hundreds daily, at all hours, and the scene is everywhere gay and animated. The large crowds were entertained nightly with theatricals and concerts, followed by dances in the new Concert Hall.’]