Burke Messines to Carrick Hill:

Writing Home from the Great War
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78117-485-2
Verlag: Mercier Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten

The book is structured around a collection of letters written by a nineteen year old Irish officer in the 6th Royal Irish Regiment, 2nd Lieutenant Michael Wall from Carrick Hill, near Malahide in north Co. Dublin. Michael was educated by the Christian Brothers in Dublin and destined to study science at UCD before being seduced by the illusion of adventure through war. By contextualising and expanding the content of Wall's letters and setting them within the entrenched battle zone of the Messines Ridge, Burke offers a unique insight into the trench life this young Irish man experienced, his disillusionment with war and his desire to get home. Burke also presents an account of the origin, preparations and successful execution of the battle to take Wijtschate on 7 June 1917 in which the 16th (Irish) and 36th (Ulster) Divisions played a pivotal role. In conclusion Burke offers an insight into the contentious subject of remembrance of the First World War in Ireland in the late 1920s

Tom Burke was a member of the committee behind the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Messines opened in 1998. In August 2004, Tom was awarded an MBE for his contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process He has contributed to several publications on Ireland and the First World War. He was a consultant on several television and radio documentaries on Ireland's participation in the First World War presented by RTE, BBC (NI) and UTV. He is a member of the WW1 advisory committee to the National Library and National Museum of Ireland.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Burke, Thomas

Leseproben

1
Innocence

Michael Thomas Wall, or ‘Al’ as he was known to family and friends, was born on 21 March 1898 in the fishing village of Howth, north County Dublin.1 His father, also named Michael, had been born on a farm near the village of Coolrain, County Laois; he worked as a bookkeeper in Howth.2 Michael’s mother, Theresa Carr, was born on 24 February 1872 and came from Dunbo Cottages, near Dunbo Terrace, behind the police station in Howth.3 Theresa and Michael Wall senior (who was a widower) met in Howth and were married in the old Catholic church in the village on 21 May 1897.4 Within a year of their marriage, Michael junior was born at Glentora, an elegant house situated on the fashionable Balkill Road in Howth. Over the next ten years, Michael senior and Theresa brought three more children into the world: Patrick Joseph, or ‘Joe’, in 1899; Agatha Mary in 1901; and Bernard, or ‘Barney’, on 20 August 1908.

In May 1906, at a little over eight years of age, young Michael enrolled in St Joseph’s Christian Brothers School (CBS) in the north Dublin suburb of Fairview.5 Each morning he travelled to school by tram from Howth along the coast road. The full fourteen-and-a-half kilometre journey to Nelson’s Pillar in central Dublin took about forty-five minutes; the fare was five pennies.6 Within a month of his being at St Joseph’s, Michael had made an impression on his teacher, Brother M. S. O’Farrell, who wrote to Mrs Wall telling her that ‘Michael is a fine, talented child. He’s bound, if God spares him, to become a fine man.’7

The year 1908 was a good one for Michael. In August his mother gave birth to a baby boy she named Barney, and Michael passed his Standard III exam and advanced to Standard IV. Written on Michael’s Standard III certificate was a quotation by the writer John Ruskin (1819–1900), which the brothers used as a kind of motto: ‘Education is the leading of human souls to what is best.’ Brother Reid signed Michael’s certificate.

The following year St Joseph’s – or ‘Joey’s’ as it became known to generations of Dubliners – reached its twenty-first year and metaphorically had come of age (the school had been in operation since 1888). It had three Christian Brothers and three lay teachers teaching under the supervision of Brother Patrick Berchmans Reid (1880–1956), Master of Method in the Christian Brothers’ training school. The school hours were 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. In that year, Joey’s had a state inspection. The inspectors were pleased with the layout of the school, its cleanliness and the provision of blackboards and maps. They noted the presence of a library containing some 600 volumes, mostly books of adventure. They also noted that discipline was very good and that punishment was by means of a strap on the palm of the hand.8

Sometime after Barney was born, the Wall family had moved from Howth to 7 Hollybrook Road, Clontarf, a well-established parish about five kilometres north-east of Dublin city and near Fairview.9 A terrible tragedy struck this young family in December 1910 when Michael’s father died, aged forty-five, from cancer of the colon. He was buried in St Fintan’s Cemetery, Sutton, County Dublin. Michael was just twelve. The death of her husband left Theresa with a very young family and no regular source of income; the future looked bleak indeed.

Theresa’s sister Margaret, or ‘Margo’ for short, was one year older than her and had married a wealthy landowner, Sir Percy Willan. Their family residence was at Carrick Hill House, a grand country house with thirty-two rooms, near Portmarnock, also in north County Dublin. In an act of kindness, Margo offered Theresa and her young family part of her home in which to stay.Margo had suffered her own share of tragedy. She had married in 1899 and in 1903 gave birth to a boy named Cyril. Four years later, however, her husband ran off with Cyril’s nanny. He also left Margo near-penniless at the time by selling most of the farm’s livestock.10 Before he had died, Theresa’s husband, Michael, with his farming experience, had helped to restock the farm at Carrick Hill. The exact date on which Michael junior and the rest of his family moved to Carrick Hill is not known, but it may well have been soon after he left Joey’s in January 1911.

The estate around Carrick Hill House consisted of about 263 acres of excellent farming land. It was a very active farm, with the main business coming from cattle, sheep and the growing of Russet eating apples for export.11 The house itself was surrounded by beautiful gardens. It was customary with such large country houses to have live-in maids. Two lived at Carrick Hill: Bridget Marshall, aged thirty-one, who was single and from County Westmeath, and Elizabeth Clynn, seventeen and also single, from County Longford.12

Portmarnock was the nearest village to Michael’s new home.13 In the early twentieth century, it was a typical small Irish country village with an economy that was based mainly on agriculture. Like many such villages at the time, Portmarnock had its share of local landlords and gentry. The bulk of the land around the village was in the hands of four families, namely the Jamesons (Protestant and associated with the distilling of Irish whiskey), the Plunketts (Roman Catholic), the Trumbulls (Protestant) and the Willans (Protestant). Probably the earliest landowners in the area were the Plunkett family, who were in Portmarnock as far back as 1733. They were also related to St Oliver Plunkett, who had been primate of Ireland in the seventeenth century. The Plunketts ran a brick factory in the village for nearly 200 years and, along with farming, provided the main source of employment in the parish. Out of the twenty-three families who lived in Portmarnock, sixteen lived on lands owned by the Plunkett family.14

Front (top) and rear views of Carrick Hill House, Carrick Hill, Portmarnock, County Dublin. Courtesy of the Kavanagh family.

Living and working on the Willan estate were six families.15 Tommy Cunningham, the Land Steward who worked on the estate, lived there all his life. When Sir Percy departed, Margo had known nothing about farming and had relied on Tommy, who, through hard work, brought the farm back from near-bankruptcy. Cunningham was a decent, honest man, respected by those who worked under him. He died, aged eighty-eight, in 1956 and is buried in the Old Cemetery in Portmarnock.16 Harry Kealy, the local coalman’s brother, was the Willans’ shepherd.17 John Donnelly was the blacksmith; his forge and thatched family home were on the road leading up to the big house.

Mrs Connie Fowler, née Donnelly, was one of the blacksmith’s daughters. She could recall her father working in his forge when she was a little girl: the only light was ‘daylight which came in through the double door at the front … Among Dad’s regular customers was Cyril Willan, James Kealy, the local coalman, the Jamesons and the locals who had ponies for Sunday mass.’ She had fond memories of life in Portmarnock during the years of the First World War, especially on market day, which began with the collection of cabbages from the Willan estate. In the summer months, when the beach and golf course at Portmarnock attracted visitors, Connie’s mother opened a tea garden in the front garden of the house, with tables set with white linen tablecloths and decorated with flowers from the garden.18

Martha Reilly was born in Portmarnock in 1894. Her recollections of lazy, peaceful summer evenings present a further image of life around the Willan estate in the early twentieth century:

The Jamesons used to rent the Martello field from Willan for grassing and the cows used to walk from that field across the road and down onto the strand near the rocks at the Martello Tower. They used to paddle in the water and lie on the beach. It was lovely to watch them. At evening they would then move down the strand and across the sandy banks on their way to Jameson’s stables for milking.19

The Dublin artist Walter Osborne (1859–1903) was a regular summer visitor to Portmarnock. His paintings Cattle in the Sea, Milking Time in St Marnock’s Byre and On the Beach depict the scene Martha talked about.20

There was no Catholic church in the village of Portmarnock for centuries until the first one was dedicated on Sunday 22 July 1934. Consequently, folks had to travel, mainly by horse and cart, on the coast road from Portmarnock and Carrick Hill to the Church of St Peter and Paul in Baldoyle. The parish priest who looked after the spiritual needs of the Roman Catholics of Portmarnock, Carrick Hill and Baldoyle was Fr Robert Carrick (1833–1932). The children of the village went to the Jameson School, so named after the family who were the school’s early patrons from 1868. When the Jamesons visited the school, the children all had to stand up and sing ‘God Save the King’. The school was a national school for the village children between four and twelve years of age, and was in use until 1965.21

Apart from Michael, all...