De Valera in America

Always on the look out for 2nd hand books relating to the Easter Rising, War of Independence, Civil War, WW1 and picked up a copy of "De Valera in America" in a shop in Oxford for £2.00. Thought it was an older book (the cover made it look old) but it appears to be a 2010 publication.

Interesting so far. Harry Boland gets a good write up. Some dodgy US characters on the platform with De Valera.

Kevin Barry, Dublin, 1920

Kevin Barry was just 18 when he was hung by executioner John Ellis in Dublin in November 1920.

The 3 British soldiers who died as a result of the raid on Monk's Bakery where Kevin Barry was captured were :


Private Harold Washington, aged 15 (born Salford, Lancashire on 4th October 1904). Died at the scene of the raid.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/378591/WASHINGTON,%20H

Findagrave


Private Marshall Whitehead, aged 20, born 3rd quarter (July to September) 1900. Died of wounds.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2751877/WHITEHEAD,%20MARSHALL

Findagrave


Private Thomas Humphries, aged 19. Died of wounds.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/411232/HUMPHRIES,%20T

Findagrave


A wide range of propaganda was generated re the young age of Kevin Barry. The British don't appear to have countered this propaganda very well - there doesn't appear to have been too much done to use the age of Private Washington in relation to pressure re Kevin Barry's age (Harold Washington's death registration lists him as 19). 

Victory Parade Dublin 1919

Following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles bringing WW1 to an end officially, a number of Victory or Peace Parades were organised by the allies in a number of towns and cities e.g. London, Paris, Toronto, New York to name a few.

The parade in Dublin took place on the 19th July 1919. According to "Ireland, the Great War and the Geography of Remembrance" by Nuala Johnson, the parade gathered in the yard at Dublin Castle between 9:30am and 10:30am. The order of march was sorted with a view to departing at 11:30am. Johnson suggests that there were 20,000 in the parade including 5000 demobbed soldiers and sailors.

Order of march :

Mounted Troops, DMP
Irish Guards Pipe Band
Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers
General Pagan, GOC, and Staff
P Battery and R Battery, Royal Horse Artillery - Lt Col Foreman
888nd Battery, Royal Field Artillery, Major Fletcher RFA
Detachment Royal Engineers, Capt Bleiben
3rd Battn, King's Own Lancashire Regiment, Lt Col B Evann
3rd Battn, Yorkshire Regt, Lt Col C R White DSO
5th Battn, Worcester Regt, Lt Col B R Roche OBE
3rd Battn, South Lancs Regt, Lt Col H G Roberts
3rd Battn, Royal Berks Regt, Lt Col North DSO
3rd Battn, Wiltshire Regt, Lt Col L W Spiller
3rd Battn, Gordon Highlanders, Colonel T L G Burnett CMG DSO
Detachment (Depot) Royal Dublin Fusiliers
Detachment GHQI Science School
11th Reserve Battn, Machine Gun Corps, Lt Col Plimpson DSO
Trench Mortar Battery
866 (HT) Royal Army Service Corps
Detachment Royal Army Medical Corps
Detachment Royal Army Ordnance Corps
Detachment Royal Army Veterinary Corps
Detachment Royal Air Force
Royal College of Surgeons' OTC
Trinity College OTC, Major Tate
St Andrew's College OTC
1st Cadet Battn, Royal Dublin Fusiliers
Detachment Women's Legion and WAAC
Detachment Women's Royal Air Force
Red Cross VAD
Armoured Cars
Tanks Corps
Armoured Lorries
Light Tanks
Heavy Tanks

The tail end being the 17th (Armoured Car) Battalion Tank Corps (possibly with elements of the 6th Battalion Tank Corps).

The route passed the Bank of Ireland building where the salute was taken. There were large crowds around Trinity College, Colllege Green etc

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53095570@N05/4904413958/

Johnson's book carries a map with the route leading to St Stephen's Green and notes that it did not pass along Sackville (O'Connell) Street, scene of the Easter Rising (and later route of Easter parades). Possibly a political statement, possibly a reflection that Sackville Street and surrounds were still not rebuilt (the GPO only finally restored in the late 1920's).

17th (Armoured Car) Battalion, Tank Corps

The 17th (Armoured Car) Battalion of the Tank Corps served in Marlborough Barracks, Dublin during the Tan War/War of Independence.

Prior to this they had served in France and Germany. This passage is a nice summary of the work of the 17th   Battalion :

http://www.archive.o...835168_djvu.txt

It was formed, equipped, and landed in France in the short 
space of six days. In six months it fought in ten separate 
battles with English, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, 
South African, French, and American troops, and was three 
times mentioned in German dispatches. Every car was 
hit and some of them many times, and yet the total losses 
in killed in action throughout this period was only one officer 
and four(? see below) other ranks. At the cost of these five men and 
seven cars totally destroyed, this battalion must have in- 
flicted scores if not hundreds of casualties on the enemy. 
That the British Army was not equipped with many more of 
these units will be a problem which will doubtless perplex 
the minds of future military historians. 

The men killed were :

Pte Frank Robinson KIA 11/6/1918

Cpl William McNicoll KIA 21/8/1918

Pte Frederick Arthur Balch KIA 2/9/1918

Lt Norman Clark Wood MC KIA 2/9/1918

Pte Herbert Taylor KIA 29/9/1918

Pte William Duncan Sheard MM KIA 29/9/1918

Pte William Morris Toulson Died 6/10/1918

Pte R W Ewing Died 12/02/1919

Balch, Taylor and McNicoll had all been transferred from the Royal Flying Corps.

Pte Sheard's MM gazetted 27th January 1919, alongside Lance Corporal C Rhodes. Sheard is recorded in the MGC Database on the National Archives website (search Discovery using reference SKR/DAT/IP/104267).

In Ireland, the battalion had Austin (and later Peerless) armoured cars as well as some Whippet medium tanks and the rhomboid Mark V  and Mark V* normally associated with WW1.

A number of Whippet tanks from the 17th (AC) Battalion took park in the Victory Parade in Dublin, 19th July 1919 (Victory Parades were held in many of the Allied countries on this date, following the Treaty of Versailles) :

A230 Gofasta

A378 Golikell

A351 Fanny Adams

A289 Fanny's Sister

A340 was photographed being used in County Clare.

3 others seem to have been in Ireland in 1919 :

A242 Sadko

A308

A317

while A374 appears to have been in Dublin in 1920. (Thanks to Christina McMullen in the Early Irish Militaria 1916-1946 Facebook group for a picture showing A374 in a raid and named as "Shurrup").

A Company appears to have used Austin armoured cars

B Company appears to have used Whippets tanks

C Company appears to have used the Mark IV, V and V* tanks

Guardian Photographer

stumbled upon an article re photographers in Ireland from an old online issue of the Guardian which mentions a photographer Walter Doughty who I'd not heard of before. Also a link to an archive of Guardian photos, some of which cover the Irish Civil War and afterwards.

The first article mentioned that a number of photographers/press came to Dublin on HMS Dove. This is the ship/sailing that brought Major General Friend across to Dublin (p39, The Sea Hound by Daire Brunicardi).

Irish Volunteers

For anyone interested in the development, arms, equipment and operation of the Irish Volunteers/Irish National Volunteers in the period 1913 to 1922, there is an active group on Facebook with lots of photos and discussions

http://www.facebook.com/groups/irishvolunteers/

The Irish Volunteers group website is at 

http://irishvolunteers.org/

(John) Gordon Lewis

One chap who keeps cropping up in my research is (John) Gordon Lewis, a press photographer/cameraman.

From Antrim, he enlisted in the British Army on the 14th September 1914, becoming number 18094, Private, Royal Irish Rifles. 101 days later, 23rd December 1914, he was discharged as not likely to make an efficient soldier.

He moved to Dublin and joined a film company run by Norman Whitten. Whitten had filmed the funeral of the victims of the Bachelor's Walk Massacre in 1914 and the funeral of Donovan O'Rossa in 1915. Lewis appears to have done well and later captured much on film whilst also appearing in shots himself :

Richard Mulcahy

Cathal Brugha

Lewis caught the death of Sean Treacy on camera, a work that is often confused with scenes from a fictional film from 1926 called Irish Destiny.

Whitten and Lewis worked on an early Irish film post war re The Days of St Patrick.

Whitten was to return to England while Lewis became a cameraman for British Pathe news.

The work of both these men can be seen in Mise Eire and Saoirse.