the royal munster fusiliers

There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that each and every Irishman that went to the battlefields of the Great War was a ' Hero '. They fought and died for a cause that they believed in.They fought and died for a cause they thought bigger than their own.

The above photograph is the face of a young man who followed his older brother Harry into the 8th (S) Battalion Royal Munster Fusilers.It is a photograph of a young man who ventured off to France with many thousands of other Irishmen .At the age of 18 this young lad had landed in France and was sent straight to the Trenches at Loos where the Germans made their terrifying gas attack on the Irish Regiments who were holding the line. The Irish boys faught back bravely.By the time the above picture had been taken,Patrick had already been wounded and survived the horrors of the Somme and Third Ypres. He stares from the frame, a man with a gentle face, yet he appears haunted by the scenes he must have witnessed. The pages relating to the Royal Munster Fusiliers are dedicated in memory to Patick, his brother Harry and all the other men who served and died with the Royal Munster Fusiliers for a cause they thought was worth fighting for. They were a generation of Irishmen who sadly could not talk about their experiences in the trenches and the price they paid. (Dedicated by Paticks Great Grandson Martin, from Derry, who sent me this fine picture of his Grandfather )

 

moral. Yet even a photograph such a this where the subject matter appears quite clear can also be misleading as further examination shows that several of the figures have no torso and a severe shrapnel wound to the leg of another is evident leaving a large gaping hole.Ther is also a ghostly face appearing from beneath one of the ground sheets covering the bodies. The picture speaks about the true horror of the trenches. How would it be possible to return home and explain scenes such as these to people who had no idea what is was like apart from picking up the daily newspaper and reading some romantic version of how the " boys swept on and forward into a hail of German machine-gun fire "

The Dead

Blow out , you bugles, over the rich dead!
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave , their immortality,

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our derth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways agian;
And we have come into our heritage.

Rupert Brooke

" In these attacks a man's world was the shell-wracked horizon some few yards ahead
Under these conditions comradship could help you carry on, but it was discipline that
Got you started and kept you going. And hanging over everything was that awful
Pretence of being afraid.
Strange things happened in those trenches. There were those who said that some had
A definite premonition of their death- a once gay companion would fall silent and
Quietly go and prepare his kit; when the time came to "go over the top " he would go
Mechanically as though his soul had already departed his body. Those ones seldom
Came back. Some other would get hallucinations and suddenly and for no apparent
Reason climb over the parapet to his death, unless his comrades could stop him in
Time. In the line they tried to maintain an offensive spirit in all they did, for the
Irishman hates routine, but it was a lonely life. Yet none of this came out in their
Letters home. They lied in these, persistently and with intenet, and pictured a life of
Comparative comfort and little danger "

From the book " The Micks " The story of the Irish Guards by Peter Verney

Forgotten Irish Heroes?