Recruitment in Ireland 1914 onward

[TOMMY MOONEY]

I had an uncle who joined the British Army Regiment THE SOUTH IRISH HORSE in 1915. He was born 1n 1899 and was then living in Ballyragget, Co. Kilkenny. I have been told that his records were among those destroyed in WW2 Bombing of London. I have heard family lore that indicates that he may have sailed from Waterford city, after recruitment, for training in England before being sent to France. Is there anywhere that I can still verify this, or does anyone have a relative who went through a similar process after joining up ?

[RussT]

http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/cavalry-regiments/the-south-irish-horse/

Some info in this link

Russ

Do you have a name and number? There might be records for men who joined at the same time from which you might be able to reconstruct likely movements.

Russ

[PRC]

There is also a website dedicated to the South Irish Horse - I believe the owner is active on this forum @vaugh.
http://www.southirishhorse.com/

Cheers,
Peter

[TOMMY MOONEY]

Thank you Peter, yes I have been in correspondence with Doug Vaugh , several times, over the years and he did help me quite a bit with Medal Card etc., but I do not like to badger him constantly and so I have just found your Forum and thought that someone there might have some further information, generally, about men who joined that particular regiment, where and how and, maybe, even why ?

[vaugh]

Hi everyone,

No worries about bothering me Tommy, sadly though there is little else I can help with other than to say he remained a cavalry man throughout his service. I've attache a list of men with similar numbers for information and just so everyone knows, Tommy's uncle was called John Francis Keating, Private 1549 and 73166, he is one of around four hundred men who did not transfer to the Royal Irish Regiment and remained a cavalry man.

 

[TOMMY MOONEY]

Thank you as always Doug. I am hoping, on this FORUM that I can hear from someone who may have had a relative in The South Irish Horse. I'm hoping to hear some kind of account from their family lore of the circumstances of their recruitment, and/or training and/or experiences in France.

For instance I do know that my uncle used to come to Ardmore on his summer holidays before he joined up and that the son of a wealthy family who used also come here on their holidays, was an Officer in the same Regiment (His name was Dwyer, of the well known Cork City merchant family). I was told that he made a splendid figure in his uniform at Mass on Sundays in those days. I was also told that my uncle was immensly impressed by this, and that it was his main motivation for enlisting. A further snippet of information was in a letter that my uncle wrote home saying that he had suffered from a German Gas attack and was in hospital, briefly, before being sent back to the lines. Unfortunately the letter is missing but I vaguely remember reading it as a young lad.

You never know do you ? someone on here may be interested. Thanks again Doug.

[RussT]

Just to go back to my point made earlier. Have you actually looked for and examined other men's records to see if there are any patterns from which you might be able to piece together a viable history during his time of service?

Russ

[vaugh]

Hi Thomas,

Always a pleasure to assist and hopefully someone on here will be able to furnish you with a little more information.

The officer you mention is Walter Dwyer, promoted 2nd Lt Royal Dublin Fusiliers 9th Nov 1915, later transferred to the SIH 29th Feb 1916, promoted Lieutenant 29th Aug 1917 relinquished his commission 1st Apr 1920. He never applied for his medals so has no MIC.

Quote

Just to go back to my point made earlier. Have you actually looked for and examined other men's records to see if there are any patterns from which you might be able to piece together a viable history during his time of service?

Just to pick up on Russ's point, there are around 445 men with service papers of one sort or another, here is a list of men with a similar number, who have papers, should keep you busy:

docs_found_printed

Full Name	SIH Numb
DALY Patrick Joseph	1490
HERON Francis Edward	1491
BARRETT Reginald James	1509
RYAN Patrick Cornelius	1512
CONNELL James	1513
RIORDAN Patrick	1520
LOWRY Cornelius P	1525
MORRIS Robert Joseph	1531
O'CONNOR John	1556
RICHARDS John James	1582
JOHNSON William	1611
SLATTERY Michael	1616
ENRIGHT Patrick	1619
HARRIS Basil Moore	1632
CAREY John G	1655
GREENE Arthur W	1667
GREENE Joseph	1669
CONWAY Henry Wynne	1677
POLSON George Cecil	1678
FITZGERALD Gerald	1680

Edited 26 May , 2022 by vaugh

[FROGSMILE]

29 minutes ago, vaugh said:

Hi Thomas,

Always a pleasure to assist and hopefully someone on here will be able to furnish you with a little more information.

The officer you mention is Walter Dwyer, promoted 2nd Lt Royal Dublin Fusiliers 9th Nov 1915, later transferred to the SIH 29th Feb 1916, promoted Lieutenant 29th Aug 1917 relinquished his commission 1st Apr 1920. He never applied for his medals so has no MIC.

Just to pick up on Russ's point, there are around 445 men with service papers of one sort or another, here is a list of men with a similar number, who have papers, should keep you busy:

docs_found_printed

Full Name	SIH Numb
DALY Patrick Joseph	1490
HERON Francis Edward	1491
BARRETT Reginald James	1509
RYAN Patrick Cornelius	1512
CONNELL James	1513
RIORDAN Patrick	1520
LOWRY Cornelius P	1525
MORRIS Robert Joseph	1531
O'CONNOR John	1556
RICHARDS John James	1582
JOHNSON William	1611
SLATTERY Michael	1616
ENRIGHT Patrick	1619
HARRIS Basil Moore	1632
CAREY John G	1655
GREENE Arthur W	1667
GREENE Joseph	1669
CONWAY Henry Wynne	1677
POLSON George Cecil	1678
FITZGERALD Gerald	1680

I am interested to read about Dwyer.  The SIH had the most Irish looking full dress in the entire British Army order of battle I think, with its very Irish shade of green uniform that I suspect might have been the one worn at mass on Sundays.  It’s made me wonder if that influenced Dwyer’s decision to leave a more British styled, albeit intrinsically Irish unit, such as the RDF.  It was also the only regiment with ‘South Irish’ in its title, which alone was a significant and demonstrative marker.  The fact that he never applied for his medals also might imply some deeply personal bitterness, or even political motive. I’ve no idea what the case might’ve been and this is merely me musing out loud. 

Edited 26 May , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[vaugh]

Hi,

Dwyer had a bad time of it, not only was he suffering from periodontitis, loosing most of his teeth but had previous to joining up suffered a nervous breakdown in 1913. His officers file at Kew (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1100598) is fairly scant, which is nearly always the case with these files having been thinned out several times. I suspect the Royal Dublin Fusiliers posting was for training only. He might not have had such a splendid uniform as shown above, joining as he did in 1915, it might have been a plain karki. 

He went overseas with 'A' Sqn SIH on the 4th Aug 1916, transferring to 'B' Sqn in November. He was on sick leave to the UK from 7th Jan 1917 and seemingly never returned to France. However, as shown in the attached page, was with a mobile squadron SIH in County Clare Ireland during March 1918. Other sources attest to the thorn in the side of the IRA that the SIH proved to be with these mobile manoeuvres. 

Not applying for his medals is not too unusual, who knows why but the prevailing situation in Ireland was fraught and fluid politically and many medals were returned to the medal office in Droitwich England.
 

[FROGSMILE]

12 minutes ago, vaugh said:

Hi,

Dwyer had a bad time of it, not only was he suffering from periodontitis, loosing most of his teeth but had previous to joining up suffered a nervous breakdown in 1913. His officers file at Kew (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1100598) is fairly scant, which is nearly always the case with these files having been thinned out several times. I suspect the Royal Dublin Fusiliers posting was for training only. He might not have had such a splendid uniform as shown above, joining as he did in 1915, it might have been a plain karki. 

He went overseas with 'A' Sqn SIH on the 4th Aug 1916, transferring to 'B' Sqn in November. He was on sick leave to the UK from 7th Jan 1917 and seemingly never returned to France. However, as shown in the attached page, was with a mobile squadron SIH in County Clare Ireland during March 1918. Other sources attest to the thorn in the side of the IRA that the SIH proved to be with these mobile manoeuvres. 

Not applying for his medals is not too unusual, who knows why but the prevailing situation in Ireland was fraught and fluid politically and many medals were returned to the medal office in Droitwich England.
 

Thank you for your courteous and informative reply Vaugh.  Just as you say, his medical problems and the volatile situation in Ireland immediately post war certainly seem likely to be the cause of his disengagement I agree.  I was puzzled that his uniform at mass would impress onlookers if it was simple khaki service dress, but you’re probably right that he would have had no reason to purchase full dress in 1915.

Edited 26 May , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[vaugh]

Its always a pleasure to add information about these men, he came from a well established merchant Catholic family in Cork and was educated at Downside College, his age was given as 27 but I feel he might have been closer to 30 when he joined up. Sadly I don't know too much more about this man save for the fact that he did eventually marry and lived to be 82 years old, passing away in 1966 in Cork.

[TOMMY MOONEY]

You certainly have the right man Doug, I remember him myself from the 1940s and 50s as a dignified gentleman on  visits with his family in their summer house in Ardmore, Co. Waterford, Ireland. A relation of his still comes every summer and some weekends and I must show him the documents that you have so painstakingly supplied. Perhaps I will surprise him ? I think, on reflection, that there is also a closer relative of Walter Dwyer living in Youghal, Co. Cork but I will check with her.

As far as having impressed people at Mass with his "splendid" uniform goes, I must add that it may well have been my mother, and her local young women friends, who were the ones most distracted from their devotions by Lieutenant Dwyer in his uniform.  She may well have seen him in church here, in his later years as a Lieutenant, on leave from that Co.Clare campaign, and have latterly attributed her brother's enlistment to it ?  It was many, many years later that we discussed "Uncle Jack" and, certainly there was no financial factor in "Jack" Keating's motivation. Jack's father, my Grandad, was a Parnellite and a Redmond follower, up to the split in the Volunteer movement. The story in my family was that he managed to have Jack sent home from training by utilising the good offices of the original local recruiting influencer. (The Reverend John Warren.) He was just under age and so it was possible, however the next year "Jack" went and successfully re-enlisted.

[vaugh]

Hi Tommy,
There are around forty pages in Walter Dwyer's file, so if these relatives need more information please ask away and I'll oblige.

[TOMMY MOONEY]

Thank you Doug, I had hoped to see my friend who, I am certain, is related to Walter Dwyer but, unfortunately he did not visit here over the past two weekends. That was rather unusual but, I'll await his next visit and give him all that you have gleaned so far. Should he seek more information I will put you in touch.