by Joe Power
Many years ago, sometime in the early 1970s, I interviewed the late Garda Sgt Jim Long, who was stationed at Clare Castle. He had served in the Great War and I asked him why he had enlisted. He said that he was then a young man living in Cork and he believed that preference would be given to those who had served in the war if there were employment opportunities afterwards. He told me that he did not particularly wish to fight, so he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served on the Western Front in France and Belgium. He did not wish to talk about his activities while he was there; perhaps the memories were too painful. He was profiled in an article in the Irish Independent of 10 March 1938, being described as ‘a Clare Garda officer of many talents, poet, archaeologist, coin collector and camera-man’. In the article the description of his Great War career is brief: ‘A native of Ballincolllig, Co. Cork, Sgt Long served as a stretcher-bearer with the 37th and 5th Divisions in France and Belgium during the Great War, and was gassed at Douai in 1917.’ The article also noted that ‘one of his most painful memories is the Drumcollogher Cinema fire, where many lives were lost’. He was stationed there at the time. (The cinema tragedy happened on 5 September 1926 and forty-eight people were killed.) I am thankful to Eric Shaw for giving me a copy of this newspaper article.
I remember a few other ‘old soldiers’, veterans of the Great War, who lived at Clare Castle until the 1960s and 1970s, such as Mick Moore, who lived at Barrack Street; Willie Kelly, who lived on the Ennis Road at Clare Abbey, and Stephen ‘The Dad’ Moloney who lived in Killow. There were also a few war widows living in the village, Mrs ‘Mary Taylor’ McMahon, whose husband Michael was killed in 1917, and Mrs Molly Callaghan, whose husband was killed while serving in the US Army in France. None of these people mentioned the war and its impact upon them.
15. CJ, 6 September 1915; Myles Dungan, op. cit., pp 15, 18, 23.
16. T.R. Henn, ‘Five Arches, with Philocotes’ and Other Poems (Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe, 1980), pp.64-65.
The following officers, with Clare connections were mentioned in the newspapers above, especially the Saturday Record and the Clare Journal, cited for bravery: H.M.C. Vandeleur, Ralahine; Lt G. Gore, Derrymore; Lt R. Studdert, Hazelwood; Lt H. Spaight, Killaloe; Capt. Lysaght, Raheen; Capt. Alex Vandeleur, Kilrush and Cahercon; Capt. Cullinan Bindon Street, Ennis; Gen. Sir O’Moore Creagh, Cahirbane; Maj. J.P. Butler, Knappogue; Lt B.E. Stacpoole Mahon, Corbally; Lt J.F.R. Massy Westropp, Doonass; Capt. R.H. Stacpoole, Edenvale; Lt Lane-Joynt, Carnelly; Capt. W.F. Henn, Paradise; Capt. Bindon Blood, Templemaley; Lt Dan O’Brien, Clare Abbey; Capt. Poole Hickman, Kilmore, House, Knock; Lt J. Roche Kelly, Mullagh; Capt. Tottenham, Mount Callan; Lt Donough O’Brien, Dromoland; Maj. F.C. Sampson, Scariff; Commander Gore, RN, Derrymore; Lt Hugh Murrough Vere O’Brien, Ballyalla; Maj. George MacNamara, Ennistymon; Lt G.W. Maunsell, Island McGrath; Maj. R.H. Studdert, Hazelwood; Capt. Hume Crowe, Dromore; Lt Claude Molyneux Molony, Ennis; and Flight Lt, the Hon. Desmond O’Brien, Dromoland. Other Clare military men mentioned included, Gen. Sir Thomas Kelly Kenny, Doolough Lodge; Maj. Moloney, Kiltannon, Tulla; Maj. Ievers, Mount Ievers, Sixmilebridge; and Col O’Callaghan Westropp, Lismehane, Tulla. It is significant that almost all of these officers belonged to the old Protestant Ascendancy of Clare, who would have fought from a sense of duty for king and country.
17. Cited in Myles Dungan, op.cit, p.34.
18. Jeffery, op. cit., p.31.
19. Niamh Puirseil, ‘War, Work and Labour’, in Horne, John (ed.), Our War, Ireland and the Great War (Dublin: RIA, 2008), p.193.
20. W.B. Yeats, ‘An Irish Airman Foresees his Death’ (written in honour of Maj. Robert Gregory, who died in an air accident in 1918), poem cited in W.B. Yeats, The Poems, Everyman’s Library (London: JM Dent & Sons, 1990) introduced by David Albright.
21. Sassoon, Siegfried, MC, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (London: Faber and Faber, first published 1929), re-issued in 1965 and 1992, p.6.
22. Keith Jeffrey, ‘Gallipoli and Ireland’ in Macleod, Jenny, Gallipoli, Making History (London: Frank Cass, 2004), pp.98-110.
23. Terence, Denman, Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers, The 16th Irish Division in the Great War (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1992), p.173.
24. Cooper, Bryan, The Tenth Irish Division at Gallipoli, (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1918), reissued (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993), p.14.
25. Redmond, W., Trench Pictures from France, pp. 73, 82.
26. Denman, Terence, Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers, p.173.
27. The Irish Times, 11 June 1917; Terence Denman, A Lonely Grave, p.181; See also pp.104 and 113.
28. Denman, A Lonely Grave, p.104.
29. ibid.
30. Jeffery, Keith, op. cit., p.14.
31. Laurence Binyon, ‘For the Fallen’, cited in Kendall, T., op cit., pp.43-44.
POSTSCRIPT
‘BETTER TO WEAR OUT
THAN TO RUST OUT’
There was much apprehension amongst the Protestant unionist community in Clare about their prospects of living in Clare after the proposed introduction of Home Rule in 1914. They feared that ‘Home rule would be Rome rule’. They were reluctant to face the prospects of living in a Catholic dominated state and county. Some of them feared for their lives, livelihoods and their properties in sectarian conflict.
Naturally, when the War of Independence broke out in 1919 many Protestants in Clare feared that a sectarian war would break out and that there would be ‘ethnic cleansing’. This, however, does not seem to have been the case. Both Henry V. MacNamara and George O’Callaghan Westropp, who had raised the fears of sectarianism during their tour of the north of Ireland in 1911, survived the war. Col George O’Callaghan Westropp became a member of the Irish Senate in 1922 and was elected president of the Irish Farmers’ Union in 1926. Their large estates, like all other landed properties, were divided up by the Land Commission after 1923. However, they remained in County Clare for many years afterwards.1
Some large gentry houses were burnt down during the War of Independence, but the motives for these actions seem to have been political rather than sectarian, in reprisals for the burnings of nationalists’ homes by the Black and Tans. Some of these houses were also being used by the British Army or by the RIC, so they were deemed to be military targets. Those burnt included Doolin House (H.V. MacNamara); Beechlawn House, Newmarket-on-Fergus; Woodpark House, Scarriff (Mr Hibbert); Violet Hill, Broadford; Richmond House; Hazelwood House, Quin, (Mr Studdert); Strasburgh House, (R.J. Stacpoole); Fortfergus House,Kildysart, (Mr Ball); Williamstown House, (Mr Brooks); Kilmore House, Knock, the home of Capt. Hickman who was killed in Gallipoli in 1915 and Kiltannon House, Tulla (home of Col Molony). Compensation was paid in all of these cases. The RIC report on the burning of five gentlemen’s homes in 1920-21 described the motives as ‘political’.2
What was inexcusable, of course, was the destruction of several Church of Ireland buildings around this time. These reprehensible actions were clearly evidence of naked sectarianism. The church at Clare Castle was burnt on 18 April 1920; the church at O’Briensbridge was set on fire on 29 June 1920 and the church at Miltown Malbay was burnt on 14 December 1922. These burnings were not authorised by Sinn Féin and indeed were denounced by the organisation at local and national levels. These burnings may have been in reprisal for the burning of Catholic chapels in the north of the country by Orange bigots around this time. Meanwhile, Dr Berry, Church of Ireland Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora, stated in 1920 that ‘hostility towards Protestants was almost unknown in the twenty-six counties where Protestants were in a minority’.3
On the other hand, there must have been sufficient evidence of sectarianism in the country by 1923 to motivate Bishop Fogarty, who was lucky to escape an assassination attempt by the Black and Tans on 23 November 1920,4 to appeal for a higher sense of patriotism among the Irish nationalists, noting that ‘their Protestant fellow countrymen – he regretted to have to say it – were persecuted and dealt with in a cruel and coarse manner’.5
The Protestant community in Clare declined greatly over the following decades, due to a number of reasons, but not, apparently, due to sectarian bigotry. Some, such as the MacDonnells of Newhall and the Stacpooles of Eden Vale sold their houses and estates and moved away in the early 1920s. The reasons for this were largely economic, during the War of Independence and Civil War, which was accentuated during the Great Depression and the Economic War, followed by the Second World War. Difficult economic conditions followed in the 1950s that caused a massive haemorrhage of Irish people of all persuasions. Another factor was the long-term impact of the Ne Temere decree upon the Church of Ireland community after 1904.6
In 2014, 100 years after Bishop Berry’s appeal to the Church of Ireland members in the diocese to stay after the introduction of Home Rule, the number of Church of Ireland members has declined somewhat. But, so has the population of County Clare to about 86,000. It must be remembered, however, that this decline in religious infrastructure and religious practice also applies to the Catholics of County Clare in the twenty-first century. There is a great variety of other denominations and religions in the county, including Jehovah Witnesses, and Muslims, Presbyterians, Methodists and other Christian churches.
There are at least ten Church of Ireland churches still in use in the county in 2014: Ennis, Clonlara, Killaloe, Kilfenora, Kilnasoolagh, Kilkee, Mountshannon, Shannon, Spanish Point and Tuamgraney. Some of these are shared with other Christian churches, while others have seasonal or monthly services. Some former churches, such as Kilrush and Sixmilebridge, have been turned into libraries or heritage centres. There are two serving ministers in the county. There are no Church of Ireland schools in County Clare.7
Notes
1. Devas, Nicolette, Two Flambuoyant Fathers (London: Collins, 1966), passim; and O’Donovan, R., ‘To Hell or to Clare, Donogh O’Callaghan, Chief of his name, a Transplanter’ in The Other Clare, Vol. 9, 1985, p.74.
2. Ó Ruairc, Pádraig Óg, ‘The distinction is a fine one, but a real one, sectarianism in County Clare during the War of Independence’, in The Other Clare, Vol. 34, 2010, p.35-41, passim.
3. Power, Joseph, A History of Clare Castle and its Environs (2004), pp.259-60; also, Power, Joseph, The GAA in Clare Castle, 1887-1987 (1987), p.45; CC, 23 April, 24 May 1920; Ó Ruairc, Pádraig Óg, ‘Sectarianism in Co. Clare during the War of Independence’, in The Other Clare, Vol. 34, 2010, pp.36-37.
4. Irish Independent, 4 October 1930; SR, 1 November, 1930. In a letter to the press written from on board the liner Laconia, en-route from Southampton to New York, Gen. F.P. Crozier confirmed that there was a plot to murder the Bishop of Killaloe in November 1920.
5. The Irish Times, 8 May 1923, also, Letter to the Editor from Prof. Brian Walker, School of Politics, Queens University of Belfast, The Irish Times, 19 January 2011.
6. For a general appreciation of the role of the churches, both Catholic and Protestant denominations in Ireland, see J.H. Whyte, Church and State in Modern Ireland, 1923-1979 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1984), passim.
7. I am grateful to Dr Hugh Weir, Whitegate, a member of the Church of Ireland, for giving me this information.
APPENDIX
ONE
The war diary of the Hon. Donough E. F. O’Brien, (later 16th Baron Inchiquin of Dromoland), 2nd Lieutenant, Kings Rifle Regiment, from 25 October 1916 to 14 December 1916:
Sir Donough O’Brien, 16th Baron Inchiquin, c. 1965 and his war diary. (Courtesy of the Hon. Grania R. O’Brien)
Wednesday 25 October
Ordered to join Expeditionary Force in France. Left London 11.40 am. Sailed from Southampton 8 p.m. Beautiful crossing, arrived Le Havre 3 am. Farmer, Pugh, Jones and Baker came out with me, we sailed in the ‘Archangel’.
Thursday 26 October
Rained all day, reported to Camp Adjutant by 11 a.m., Allotted quarters (no. 11 camp), which consisted of minute canvas and wood shack, holding two, which I shared with MacGeorge – bed, table, and work stand made of packing cases.
Friday 27 October
Posted to 1st Batt. Went up to Central Training Camp (CTS). Lectures on bombing, skirmishing and patrolling, poured with rain all afternoon, nights frightfully cold.
Saturday 28 October
Trench work, excellent lecture on fatigue duties, had tea in house, rained a good deal. MacGeorge went up the line; he’ll come back for one night, just recovered from fairly slight shell wound in the back.
Sunday, 29 October
On fatigue party whole day, 6am-6pm, removing empty shell cases from Aod, there must be three million empty shell cases in the yard. Poured rain all day. Hill went up the line.
Monday 30 October
Went for a ten mile route march, column counting about 5,000 men, drenching rain the whole time (three and a half hours) everyone wet through to the skin.
Tuesday, 31 October
Beautiful day.
Wednesday 1 November
Went through course of every kind of gas and smoke, did night wiring in the evening, had tea in Le Havre. Lecture on trench sketching, and details which should be put in.
Thursday, 2 November
Rained all day, attended most excellent lecture on spirit of bayonet fighting, also gas and work to be done in trenches by company and platoon officers, went to watch boxing competitions.
Friday, 3 November
Bayonet fighting all morning, in the afternoon I went down to Havre to meet Aunt Marguerite, who was on her way to Paris, but couldn’t find her anywhere.
Saturday, 4 November
Revolver shooting in the morning, went down to Havre for tea, wrote and censored letters in the evening, rained most of the day.
Sunday, 5 November
Went to most excellent church parade service in cinema hut, rained all day.
Monday, 6 November
Was Orderly Officer, spent day, except during duty, censoring letters, generally between 300 to 500 letters to censor, rained all night.
Tuesday 7 November
Another draft of 85 came from England, came in to my detachment, 1st Co., I have already got 270 men, this makes my lot bigger, I should think, than all the other 5 detachments put together.
Wednesday 8 November
Rained most of the day, details were for interior economy, in the afternoon paid out my detail (1st Batt.), dined with Blake and Rowley in K.R.R. mess about 9 pm, worst storm of thunder, lightning, rain and hail I have ever seen.
Thursday 9 November
Spent the day in Central Training School, heavy showers of hail during day, beautiful night, absolutely full moon.
Friday 10 November
Spent the whole day at Havre docks with a party of about 300 Royal Garrison Artillery, and four other officers, unloading hay and corn etc. from ships into the hangar Au Coton (a shed 700 yards by 150 yards).
Saturday 11 November
Central Training School in morning, went down to Havre in afternoon.
Sunday 12 November
Took RC [Roman Catholic] church parade and attended their service, (my first service in RC church). Went to opera (Faust) in evening in the Grand Theatre du Havre! This is my first opera.
Monday 13 November
On musketry all day, 30 yards range. In evening went to excellent concert given for the soldiers in Woodbine Hut (Miss Vera Askwell).
Tuesday 14 November
Interior economy; rifle inspection in the afternoon.
Wednesday 15 November
C.T.S. all morning, paid out my detail, 1st Batt., which consisted of 425 men in the afternoon, took two and a half hours.
Thursday 16 November
I was Orderly Officer, bitterly cold day, had to wash in water with ice on it in the morning.
Extract from the war diary of Lt the Hon. Donough O’Brien. (Courtesy of Grania R. O’Brien)
Friday 17 November
Asst. Orderly Officer, draft of 190 men left my detail, bitterly cold day, snowed in the evening.
&n
bsp; Saturday 18 November
C.T.S., had tea in Havre.
Sunday 19 November
Took Roman Catholic church parade and attended the service.
Monday 20 November
-
Tuesday 21 November
Interior economy, I inspected rifles and marching orders of my detail and paid out in the afternoon.
Wednesday 22 November
Threw live bombs, rained very hard during the night.
Thursday 23 November
C.T.S., went through gas and saw demonstration of phosphorous and smoke bombs, day fine, but heavy showers.
Friday 24 November
C.T.S. , went through phosphorous and smoke bombs.
Saturday 25 November
Rained all day, I was Orderly Officer, Baker went up to the line [front line] 12 Batt., also a draft of 465 men. I put in an application for Ing. Corps, [heavy battery, i.e tanks].
Sunday 26 November
Rained all day.
Monday 27 November
I took a platoon in special drill for a good part of the morning, very heavy showers.
Tuesday 28 November
Interior economy, I inspected men, rifles and kit, also paid out. Had tea in Havre and met Leyland Barnett, who has got the Military Cross.
Wednesday 29 November
-
Thursday 30 November