Irish
SAD, SAD WAS HIS FATE
HE THE YOUTHFUL AND BRAVE
WHO CROSSED THE WILD BILLOW
AND FOUND BUT A GRAVE
RIFLEMAN THOMAS MCDOWELL
There's a memorial in the North Road Cemetery, Carrickfergus, County Antrim to William John Anderson Johnston, "only and beloved son of William and Jane Johnston", who died of yellow fever at Rio de Janeiro on the 30 January 1873 aged 18. The verse on the stone reads:
Oh sad was his fate,
He, the youthful and brave,
Had crossed the wild billows,
And found but a grave;
Yes, with strangers a grave
On a far foreign shore,
And the land of his heart's hope
He never saw more
Thomas McDowell came from Carrickfergus; his family lived at McKeen's Row, which if it's anywhere near McKeen's Avenue is today was a short walk from the cemetery. The headstone must have been familiar to someone in the family.
McDowell enlisted in the 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles on the outbreak of war. Many of those who joined came from the Down Volunteers and were fiercely pro the Union with Great Britain. The battalion arrived in France on 6 October 1915. A very full website gives its history, including an account of the 1 July 1916 when McDowell was taken prisoner during the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. He was held in Dulmen prisoner-of-war camp where he died on 22 October 1918. The cause of death is unrecorded.
ONE OF IRELAND'S SONS
WHO GAVE HIS LIFE FOR ENGLAND
MOTHER OF JESUS
PRAY FOR HIM
PRIVATE WALTER CAREY
This is yet another inscription that reveals Ireland's complicated relationship with England after the First World War. Walter Carey joined the British army long before the war. In the 1911 census both he and his elder brother, Francis, were serving in India with the 1st Munster Fusiliers.
It would appear that Carey was still in the army on the outbreak of war as his medal card shows that he landed in France on 28 August 1914, and then that he transferred to the Royal Irish Fusiliers on 27 May 1916. However, when he died he was serving with the 1st Garrison Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers which at the time of his death was in Italy on Lines of Communication Duty for the British Salonika Force. The information given to the War Grave Commission states that he died of wounds and that he'd previously been wounded in France. He's buried in Legnago Communal Cemetery, the only serviceman to be buried there.
Having served voluntarily in the British army in India, where these Irish brothers could have argued that they were defending the British Empire, his family then chose to say that this son of Ireland gave his life for England. This isn't how the Royal Munster Fusiliers recruited in the areas from which they drew their soldiers. This is one of their posters:
The
Royal Munster Fusiliers
are earning eternal
fame fighting
For YOU
Will the fine lads of
Kerry, Cork, Limerick & Clare
do nothing to help
their kinsmen?
Come along and assist in destroying the
German Menace
Carey's family obviously didn't see it like this, in their eyes the war was nothing to do with Ireland. The Careys were Roman Catholic. The Irish census form asks your religion, and even if it didn't we could tell from the final two lines of Walter Carey's inscription. However, it's not possible to tell what side the family were on in the Irish Civil War. Most of south-west Ireland, including Cork, was in the hands of republicans who opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. Savage fighting between those Irish who were pro- or anti the treaty lasted until April 1923, causing much lasting bitterness within Ireland and beyond.
I said at the beginning that Carey's was yet another inscription that revealed Ireland's complicated relationship with England in the aftermath of the First World War. These are some of the others:
He died for Ulster
We gave our best
Religion Church of Ireland
An Irishman loyal to death
To King and Country
Ireland
"An Irish Volunteer"
He died for the freedom
Of small nations
NO KING OR SAINT
HAD TOMB SO PROUD
AS HE WHOSE FLAG
BECOMES HIS SHROUD
SAPPER JAMES JOSEPH LEONARD
This inscription comes from a very patriotic poem called Nationality, written by Thomas Osborne Davis (1814-1845). Verse one declares that a nation's voice is a solemn thing and should be respected. Verse two states that a nation's flag, unfurled in the cause of Liberty, should be guarded "till Death or Victory" - with the assurance that anyone who dies defending it will have an honoured grave:
No saint or king has tomb so proud,
As he whose flag becomes his shroud.
Verse three insists that God gave nations the right to defend themselves with the sword against a foreign yoke.
'Tis freedom from a foreign yoke,
'Tis just and equal laws,
Which deal unto the humblest folk,
As in a noble cause.
So far so good, this is England fighting for her liberty against the fear of a German 'yoke'. Except that it isn't. The nation entitled to her voice, entitled to just and equal laws, is Ireland, and the foreign yoke belongs to England.
Thomas Osborne Davis, the author of the poem, was an Irish nationalist whose nationalism was based on shared Irish culture and language rather than on Catholic Emancipation or full blown independence and republicanism. He was in any case a protestant, as were Charles Stuart Parnell and Roger Casement, two other Irish nationalist figures.
The Leonards were a Roman Catholic family from Brackaville, a rural community near Coalisland, Co. Tyrone. Who knows what the family's politics were but throughout the twentieth century Coalisland was an IRA stronghold. However, many Irish people were prepared to fight for Britain because they believed John Redmond who told them that English gratitude would ensure they were rewarded afterwards with independence. And many Irish people fought for Britain because they didn't want independence.
It's not possible to tell what motivated James 'Joe' Leonard to enlist - money, adventure, escape, principle. He was an early volunteer, his medal card shows that he was entitled to the 1915 Star having arrived in France on 29 September 1915. This was well before the British suppression that followed the Dublin Easter Rising in April 1916.
Leonard served throughout the war with the 157th Field Company Royal Engineers, part of the 16th (Irish) Division. The war diary exists and shows that in October 1918 the Company were based in Auchy constructing pontoons for crossing the Heutedeule Canal and attempting to stop a leak or a 'cut' in the canal bank. The diary for 13 October records:
"No. 3 [Section] in canal cut .Sprs Leonard and Dunnington killed and the stopping of the leak was not successful."
It sounds as though there was some kind of accident in which Leonard and Dunnington were killed. There is certainly no mention of any enemy action that day. By the way, the War Graves Commission gives the date of his death as the 12 October, the war diary as the 13th.
Mrs Sarah Ann Leonard, Sapper Leonard's mother, chose his inscription - or did she? In the 1901 census neither parent were said to have been able to read.
May Ireland's voice be ever heard,
Amid the world's applause!
And never be her flag-staff stirred,
But in an honest cause!
May freedom be her very breath,
Be justice ever dear;
And never an ennobled death
May son of Ireland fear!
So the Lord God will ever smile,
With guardian grace, upon our isle.
NATIONALITY verse four
IN LOVING MEMORY
OF OUR ONLY CHILD
R.I.P.
SECOND LIEUTENANT JOHN GEORGE JOSEPH WILLIAMSON
"At 4 am on the 1st September orders were received to change direction left and advance on Wulverghem ... The advance encountered no serious opposition until the Kemmel-Neuve Eglise road was reached at 9 am. Here the right of the battalion was held up by heavy machine gun and trench mortar fire from the Neuve Eglise Ridge. Our trench mortars were brought to bear on the German machine guns and silenced those nearest the battalion. At 10.30 a forward movement was made, but B Company lost all its officers, killed or wounded, the right platoon of C Company lost 2nd Lieutenant Williamson killed and most of his men either killed or wounded."
The Campaigns and History of the Royal Irish Regiment 1902-1922
7th Battalion Royal Irish Regiment War Diaries
Sept 1/2 1918 W of Wulverghem
Casualties incurred during an attack by the Batt: -
Killed - 2 Officers and 15 OR
Wounded - 3 Officers and 55 OR and 5 OR missing
Letter from Williamson's Commanding Officer to his parents:
"There is no doubt at all that he was the best officer in the company, and he was very popular with everyone. His men would have followed him anywhere ... Whenever there was a difficulty, or an awkward job had to be tackled with judgment or tact, I always knew that I could rely on him to take it in hand and see it through properly."
Born, brought up and educated in Ireland where the family were Roman Catholic, Williamson went to RMC Sandhurst in May 1917, was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regiment in April 1918, served with them in France and Flanders from June 1918 and was killed in action at Wulverghem that September. As the inscription says, he was his parents' only child.
IRELAND
PRIVATE VINCENT ARNOLD
'Ireland', this one word summarises a world of conflicting patriotism, loyalty, heartbreak and pain.
Vincent Arnold was born in Clonmult, a tiny community close to Ballydonagh More in Co. Cork. His family were Roman Catholics and Vincent was the youngest of his parents' seven children. Aged 20 in 1911 he was working as an ironmonger's assistant in Youghal, just 13 miles from where he was born; aged 23 in 1915 he was serving in the British army.
Ireland was in turmoil. The question of Home Rule had divided the country and not just north versus south and Catholics versus Protestants. Just a month after the outbreak of war, John Redmond, the Irish Nationalist politician, pledged his support for the Allied cause and urged members of the Irish Volunteers to join the British army, claiming that, "The interests of Ireland - of the whole of Ireland - are at stake in this war". Many Irishmen did enlist, motivated by a sense of adventure, love of Ireland, loyalty to Britain or poverty. Many others saw England's difficulty as Ireland's opportunity and pressed on for independence.
Arnold served in the 7th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers and died of wounds in Salonika on 22 March 1917. When the war ended and the time came for his family to chose an inscription the turmoil in Ireland had worsened. In January 1919 Sinn Fein formed a breakaway government, Dial Eirann, and declared independence from Britain. In September 1919 the British Government outlawed Sinn Fein and the Dial and then in November 1920, following a period of escalating attacks, ambushes and reprisals, it declared martial law.
Dublin, Belfast and Co. Cork were at the centre of the violence. In December 1920 the centre of Cork City, just 30 miles from Clonmult, was burnt out by British forces and in February 1921 one of the worst atrocities took place in Clonmult itself. Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in May 1921, which partitioned Ireland, the two sides agreed on a truce. However, this was not the end of the violence as fighting broke out between the republicans who opposed and those who supported the Treaty.
Who loved Ireland more, those who wanted to maintain the union with Britain, those who were happy to support the partitioning of Ireland or those who were determined to achieve full independence? And where did the family of a soldier who had died in the service of the British crown stand? The use of the single, enigmatic word 'Ireland' on Vincent Arnold's headstone gives no clues.
WAITING IN HOLY STILLNESS
WRAPT IN SLEEP
RIFLEMAN FRANK WILLIAM PROUDMAN
This inscription is yet more evidence of the comfort relatives derived from their belief in the resurrection of the dead. It comes from a hymn by Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) of which these are the first two verses:
On the Resurrection morning
Soul and body meet again;
No more sorrow, no more weeping,
No more pain!
Here awhile they must be parted,
And the flesh its Sabbath keep,
Waiting in a holy stillness,
Wrapt in sleep.
But it's the penultimate verse that says it all:
On that happy Easter morning
All the graves their dead restore;
Father, sister, child and mother,
Meet once more.
Frank Proudman was killed on the first day of the Battle of Langemarck. Buried on the battlefield, two years later his body was exhumed as that of an unidentified British soldier. Later it was identified, according to the records, by his spoon.
Proudman was a married man and in July 1919 his wife, Wilhelmina Edith Proudman, received his war gratuity. However, when it came to the time to choose his inscription she was dead, consequently it was his mother chose the words. Wilhelmina died in December 1921, a fact that provides an interesting clue to the length of time it took the War Graves Commission to send out the requests for inscriptions.
A SON OF ULSTER
WHO DID HIS DUTY
SECOND LIEUTENANT EDWARD ALEXANDER MCCLATCHIE
The McClatchies lived in Portrush, County Antrim, where Edward's father was a National School teacher. Edward enlisted on 4 November 1915. This was before conscription was introduced in January 1916 but after the introduction of the National Registration Act in July 1915. Under this Act men were asked to 'attest', in other words to indicate by signing a form their willingness to serve when called upon to do so. It wasn't exactly compulsion but it was heavy pressure. Edward would have been the right age to have felt the need to attest. Was he 'called upon' in November 1915?
There's something about this inscription - "a son of Ulster who did his duty". It's very severe. But when you remember that Antrim was one of the Irish counties preparing armed resistance to Britain in the summer of 1914 because they felt betrayed by the British Government's preparations to introduce Home Rule for Ireland, then you can imagine that the residents of Antrim might have had mixed feelings about sending their sons to fight for Britain. Hence the emphasis on the fact that Edward McClatchie had been doing his duty. However, Edward McClatchie was a Protestant, the census says so, and as "a son of Ulster", loyal to the British Crown. There must have been many conflicted families in Ireland during the First World War - on both sides of the religious divide.
ETERNAL REST
GOD GRANT YOUR SOUL
MY OWN DEAR DARLING BOY
FROM FATHER
SERJEANT PATRICK WALSH
Patrick Walsh came from Killinick, County Wexford and served not with an Irish regiment but with the Grenadier Guards. The position of Irish soldiers who served in the British army, whether in Irish or English regiments, is illustrated by the fact that it wasn't until June 2013 that a memorial to the more than 800 Wexford men who lost their lives in the First World War was commissioned. In announcing it, the Mayor of Wexford said that he knew it would be controversial in some places but that time had moved on, 'these people left Wexford in good faith and deserve to be commemorated'.
On the 19 August 1918 the Battalion war diary recorded that the 'Commanding Officer lectures all Officers and N.C.O.s in the morning on the forthcoming battle. The Bttn. bathes. Rifle and L/Guns inspected by Armourer Sergeant.' The 'forthcoming battle', which took place on the 21/22/23 August, was the attempt to recover the Albert-Arras railway line.
The first part of John Walsh's inscription suggests, by its reference his son's soul, that the family were Roman Catholics. The second parts articulates an informal affection not often expressed by fathers. I wonder what Serjeant Walsh would have thought about being referred to as a 'dear, darling boy'!
IN PROUD AND
MOST LOVING REMEMBRANCE
LIEUTENANT COLONEL RICHARD ALEXANDER ROOTH
V Beach 25 April 1915, 6.30 am
"Up to the last moment it seemed that the Turkish defences had been abandoned; but just as the River Clyde grounded, and when the boats were only a few yards from the shore, Hell was suddenly let loose. A tornado of fire swept over the incoming boats, lashing the calm waters of the bay as with a thousand whips. Devastating casualties were suffered in the first few seconds. Some of the boats drifted helplessly away with every man in them killed. Many more of the Dublins were killed as they waded ashore. Others, badly wounded, stumbling in the water, were drowned. ... Few of the boats were able to get off again. Most of them, with their devoted crews, were destroyed on the beach. The ripples placidly lapping the shore were tinged with blood."
With this vivid piece of writing, Military Operations Gallipoli, Volume 1, compiled by Brigadier-General C.F. Aspinall, described the first few minutes of the attempted landing on V Beach in which Lt Colonel Rooth, Officer Commanding the 1st Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers "was killed instantly as he was stepping on the beach".
Rooth is buried at V Beach Cemetery. Initially he was buried in a joint grave with The Revd William Joseph Finn the Roman Catholic padre also killed on the beach. Ernest Raymond, author of the famous Gallipoli novel, Tell England, described Finn in a much later novel, The Quiet Shore (1958).
"D'you know who that padre fellah is? He's the Dublins' and Munsters' chaplain: Father Finn, or some such name. I was with him in the bows of the Clyde, watching, and when he saw hundreds of his boys lying on the beach, he said "I can't stand this, Colonel. Dammit, my bloody place is out there" - or whatever it is padres say. And Irish padres at that. And he rushed out, though several tried to stop him. A pretty stout fellah you know. But all these Irishmen are. All of 'em."
This might have been a novel but it captures the spirit of the man, which is echoed in this factual account:
"He (Finn) certainly spent a considerable part of the day beside dying soldiers as there was an abundance of them at V Beach. He attempted to save a number of drowning and wounded men before being hit himself, in the right arm. He managed to get ashore and crawled around the beach offering help or consolation to the wounded and dying Dublins and Munsters. In order to give absolution he had to hold up an injured right arm with his left. While he was blessing one of the men in this fashion, there was a shrapnel burst above him which blew part of his skull away. He was buried on the beach and his grave marked with a cross made out of an ammunition box 'To the memory of the Revd Capt Finn'."
YOUNGEST SON OF THE
DUKE AND DUCHESS DE STACPOOLE
CO. GALWAY
R.I.P.
SECOND LIEUTENANT RODERICK ALGERNON ANTHONY DE STACPOOLE
... the whole brigade felt the loss of that dear spirited boy, de Stacpoole, a charming youngster, almost a child, with the face of a girl and the heart of a hero. He was killed carrying wire across an open and fire-swept field, leaving his men under cover, and doing the most dangerous work himself.' So wrote one of Roderick (Roddy) de Stacpoole's senior officers in a letter to his wife. Major Head, another officer, reported how he had had de Stacpoole's body brought back to the Battery for burial, recording that his grave "is on the south side of the Rue du Bacquerat, 300 yards NE of Rouge Croix crossroads on the main Estaires - La Bassee road". The Grave Registration Unit later marked the grave with a wooden cross and recorded the map reference - SH 36/M.21.d.9.1. On 12 July 1920 Roddy's body was disinterred and reburied in Pont-du-Hem Military Cemetery.
Roddy de Stacpoole was the youngest of the five sons of the Duke de Stacpoole, an Irish Catholic title awarded by the Pope in 1830. All five served in the war and Roddy's elder brother, Robert, was killed on the Aisne on 20 September 1914.
RELIGION CHURCH OF IRELAND
AN IRISHMAN LOYAL TO DEATH
TO KING AND COUNTRY
PRIVATE WALTER MCCLEAN MURRAY
From his inscription it can be no surprise that Walter Murray, who came from Rockcorry, Co. Monaghan, belonged to a battalion made up largely of men from the Ulster Volunteers, which had been formed in 1912 to resist Home Rule for Ireland. His inscription could stand for that of all Ulster Unionists who were fiercely loyal to the Protestant Church and to the British Crown and deeply opposed to an independent Ireland.
GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN
HE CAME FROM MEXICO
TO SERVE IN 1915
CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENRY GIBSON MC AND BAR
Having returned from Mexico in 1915, Matthew Henry Gibson enlisted and took a commission in the 12th Irish Rifles. He joined his regiment in France on 6 June 1916.
Promoted Temporary Lieutenant the following year, by the time of his death a year later he was a Temporary Captain. One of his two MCs was gazetted on 18 October 1917, the citation published in the London Gazette on 2 December 1918.
"For great determination and gallantry. He was ordered to attack and clear up a village which was a nest of machine guns. After one and a half hours' severe house to house fighting, he succeeded in establishing his company on the far side of the village. Being short of officers, on six separate occasions he personally led his platoons forward, and captured four machine guns at the point of the bayonet.
M.C. gazetted 18th October 1917"
London Gazette 2 December 1918
The citation for his other MC was published on 7 March 1918:
"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in rallying men of other units who were falling back owing to loss of their officers, leading them forward again and again and holding on to his position under heavy fire."
Gibson died of wounds near Ypres on 29 October 1918. The 12th Irish Rifles had been withdrawn from the line with the rest of the 36th Ulster Division on the 27th, but had been in action on the 25th. The History of the 36th Ulster Division recorded that the work of 12th Irish Rifles, "was probably the best performed by that battalion, amid much good work accomplished since the beginning of offensive operations. Repeatedly the men had charged in upon houses defended by machine-guns, and bayoneted the detachments". Perhaps this was when Matthew Gibson's luck ran out.
Matthew Henry Gibson was the second of three sons of David Gibson, a Bookseller's Manager, and his wife, Annie. The family lived in Belfast. In the 1911 census, Matthew Gibson gave his occupation as House Agent. I haven't been able to discover what he was doing in Mexico.
GREAT GRAND NEPHEW
TO MICHAEL DWYER
THE FAMOUS WICKLOW CHIEFTAIN
PRIVATE GERALD PATRICK HEAVEY
One hundred and twelve years after Michael Dwyer arrived in Australia having been deported from Ireland by the British as a nationalist rebel, his seventeen-year-old, Australian, great-grand nephew, Gerald Heavey, was killed in France fighting for the British. A hundred and twelve years is time enough to forget old scores but his parents made a point of recording the connection on their son's headstone. Yet all the evidence points to their son being keen to fight. Australia did not have conscription so he was a volunteer. However, at the age of 17 he was too young to have joined up, too young to be serving in France let alone too young to die.
"HE KNOWS ABOUT IT ALL
HE KNOWS, HE KNOWS!"
PRO PATRIA
LIEUTENANT JOHN HENRY HANCOCK
This may not sound like a hymn but I think that it is, a misremembered quotation from the chorus of a revivalist hymn by Mrs Ophelia Adams:
He knows it all, He knows it all
My Father knows He knows it all
Thy bitter tears how fast they fall! -
He knows, My father knows it all.
John Hancock was killed by a high explosive shell on his way back to the rest camp at Reninghelst. Brought up in Ireland and educated at the protestant High School in Dublin, according to his parents he died for his country - pro patria.
"SAIL FORTH!
STEER FOR
THE DEEP WATERS ONLY!
RECKLESS, O SOUL EXPLORING!"
LIEUTENANT COLONEL ATHELSTAN MOORE DSO
Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Passage to India
Athelstan Moore, a professional soldier, served in the South African War where he was awarded the DSO. After this he served in West Africa and then in 1911 went to New Zealand as instructor to the Ortago Military District, serving with the Ortago Infantry. He went with them to Gallipoli in 1915 and then to France. In August 1916 he transferred to the Munster Fusiliers and then in April 1917 took command of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He died of wounds on 14 October 1918, the opening day of the Battle of Courtrai.
Married with one child, the form confirming his inscription was signed by his mother.
THERE IS NO DEATH
SECOND LIEUTENANT PHILIP MAURICE RAMSEY ANDERSON
"In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof of there is no death."
Proverbs 12:28
Philip Anderson was a Roman Catholic educated at Beaumont College, the Jesuit school in Berkshire. At the outbreak of war he was working in Argentina but returned immediately to volunteer. He joined King Edward's Horse before receiving a commission into the Royal Irish Regiment. He died on 24 February 1915 of wounds received ten days earlier near Hill 60.
His younger brother, Alan James Ramsey, also serving with the Royal Irish Regiment, had been killed on 20 October 1914.
GOD IS LOVE
CAPTAIN DUDLEY EYRE PERSSE
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1 John 4 v 7 & 8
Captain Persse was a regular soldier who had been with the Expediitonary Force since the beginning of the war. He died of wounds at No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station in Bailleul. After his death a small volume of poetry, 'Seven Poems by Dudley Eyre Persse 4th Royal Dublin Fusiliers Died of Wounds Received in Action 1 February 1915', was printed for private circulation.
AT THE RIVER'S CRYSTAL BRINK
CHRIST SHALL JOIN
EACH BROKEN LINK
CORPORAL WILLIAM STARRETT
This is a very popular memorial inscription, particularly in Northern Ireland, which is where Corporal Starrett came from - Ballinahonemore, Armagh. The inscription is a modification of a hymn by the American hymnwriter Fanny Crosby. The hymn speaks of the 'sweet day' when 'we shall meet our lov'd ones gone':
At the river's crystal brink
Some sweet day, by and by;
We shall find each broken link
Some sweet day, by and by;
LOVE AND KISSES FROM MOTHER
PRIVATE JAMES DONNELLY
James Donnelly was nineteen when he died of wounds in a Casualty Clearing Station at Roisel on 19 October 1918. His medal index card shows that he was entitled to the 1915 Star having served in a theatre of war, identified as '2b' - Gallipoli and the Aegean Islands - since 28 August 1915. At this point he can have been no more than 16 since he was eleven on the day the Irish census was taken on 2 April 1911.
Donnelly, born in Curragh, Co. Kildare, was the son of James and Ann Donnelly. His father died before he was two and in 1911 his mother had been married for nine years to William Patterson, a bar owner in Newbridge Co. Kildare. There were no living children from this marriage and it would appear that James was her only child.
On the 16 October the 2nd Battalion Dublin Fusiliers took over the front line at Saint Benin just south of Le Cateau. On the morning of the 17th they crossed the River Selle in the face of heavy machine gun fire and two attempted German counter-attacks. They were relieved in the early hours of the 19th having suffered 206 casualties of whom thirty-seven were dead. Donnelly died of wounds later that same day.
IN PROUD MEMORY
KILLED WHILE LEADING A CHARGE
OF THE 2ND LEINSTERS
GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN
LIEUTENANT COLONEL CHARLES CONYERS
Mrs Conyers was a novelist, the author of 54, Irish based, romantic novels featuring horses and hunting. She describes her husband as having been killed leading a charge, as though the Leinsters were a cavalry regiment. In fact, Colonel Conyers was killed in the frantic melee of attacks and counter attacks that caused heavy casualties amongst the Leinsters that day.