Dedicated To My Relative

Patrick ( Paddy ) seated second row, far right, with some of his mates 1938

patrick edward murtagh

By Steve Murtagh ( Mad Paddy )

Who was Paddy Murtagh? I have often asked myself as i looked at the above picture. Photographs are a very interesting thing. They are an actual living moment frozen in time. They were as real as we are today. We are left with faces from the past. Sometimes we are lucky enough to be left with information about the person, other times we are left with nothing, and have to piece together the puzzle. Quite often we might just have a story, the name of a place, passed down through the years. When i was a young boy, the name i often heard associated with Paddy was ' Dunkirk. ' The other phrase i heard from my dad was ' he killed himself . ' This last phrase, as a young child caused me some distress, because i wondered why a person would do that and take his own life. It also caused me some sadness not only because of the way he died, but also because he had become a hero of mine, and i had never had the opportunity to meet him. When my father was young, living at home in Ireland, he remembered Paddy staying at his parents house. He was a good looking man, but his life had been changed by his war experiences. My grand-parents lived in a typical Irish cottage, out in the country side in Co Meath, not far from the Hill of Tara. It was a rural like existence, water was from the well across the lane, no electricty and fire wood was gathered from the ' Black Lodge ' by ass and cart. My fathers memory of Paddy was him sitting in a chair, in front of old open fire, swearing and cursing at imaginary people, tormented by something within. As young children they found this amusing, but also quite frightening. They did not know what Paddy had been through, they did not understand as children what was going through his mind. Only Paddy knew. His torment was so great it would sometimes end in threats towards them.

Paddy's passport photo. His profession is entered as ' author '

I am now left with the pieces. The photographs, the stories. And with the help of my father, will try to piece together who Paddy was, and what happened to him to make this story so tragic. On the ' about us ' page i have mentioned that Paddy was in the Royal Ulster Rifles. This information was based on what my father pieced together on a trip to Australia, to see Paddy's mother, my great aunt. With the information at hand, and the medals he was awarded. it would appear that Paddy was now in another branch of the armed services during WW2. In order to complete some of the puzzle, i have sent the required details to Glasgow, in order to obtain his war record. A recent letter from the Disclosures Branch has stated that this may take between six and eight months due to a high volume of urgent welfare requests. The following information is what i know of Paddy's early life.

Above, faded photographs and memories. The photograph left shows Paddy on the right. My father had written ' Paddy at Durban 1943 ' The photograph right shows Paddy sitting far right. The photos is described as ' Paddy at Alexandria 1945 ' His head gear is very interesting and the group appear to be having their shoes polished.

Paddy' mother