'Last Absolution of the Munsters'

[ian turner]

David,

Images have to be max 100 KB to be accepted for posting on GWF. Maybe try resizing the image to 100 kb or less.

Ian

[Wdragon]

David,

Images have to be max 100 KB to be accepted for posting on GWF. Maybe try resizing the image to 100 kb or less.

Ian

Thanks Ian, but tis not a size problem. When I try and insert a picture I get a script prompt that asks me for the URL of the location the picture is at, it will not let me go to my desktop.

Regards

David

[michel knockaert]

Hello David,

thank you very much for your answer.

Do you think that the regiment still exists today?

I hope you can find a technical solution to post the new copy of the map.

Best wishes

Michel

[bobdenn]

Hello Everyone,

Further to my entry dated October 26th 2007 (POST 739). First the good news :- Ireland's Own magazine have agreed to publish my article on Father GLEESON and the Last Absolution. The not so good news is that it is to be published in June 2008 to coincide with the Anniversary of the battle, so I am afraid you will have to wait until then.

Wishing you all a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year.

Bob DENNIS

[michel knockaert]

Hello Bob,

we will wait for...

Thank you very much for your good wishes.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and to all the friends of the forum.

Michel

[marina]

Merry Christmas to all who read this thread

from

Marina

[Gunner R.A.]

Just finished reading this thread (took me over two nights to read it!), one of the best threads i have read here on GWF.

I have seen the picture several times before but never realised the story behind it, well done michel,

Pete.

[michel knockaert]

Hello Pete,

Thank you for your nice comments, I have the great privilege of living in the middle of many traces of ww1 and it is a real pleasure for me to know that my "work" research interests you.

very friendly

Michel

[davellis]

Jean,

The 1915 diary belonging to Father Gleeson is held by the R. C. Dioceses of Dublin.

Email contact for their Archives is archives@dublindiocese.ie

You may be able to obtain some reference to Leahy as Father Gleeson did write up names in the back of the Diary.

See my web page http://royalmunsterfusiliers.net/q1menu.htm

Also there is a brief reference to CSM Leahy in the history of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, if you would like copy of page let me know.

Regards,

Sullivan, also from Cork but many years ago.

My great uncle was a James Leahy, killed during the war. Unfortunately we have no other information, I wonder if it was him. His sister married a British Soldier, Walter Jay, they left Ireland in a bit of a hurry in 1921.

[Stebie9173]

Here are C.S.M. James Leahy's details from CWGC & SDGW:

CWGC:

Name: LEAHY

Initials: J

Nationality: United Kingdom

Rank: Company Serjeant Major

Regiment/Service: Royal Munster Fusiliers

Unit Text: 2nd Bn.

Date of Death: 25/09/1915

Service No: 8580

Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead

Grave/Memorial Reference: VII. E. 11.

Cemetery: DUD CORNER CEMETERY, LOOS

SDGW:

Name: LEAHY, James

Regiment, Corps etc.: Royal Munster Fusiliers

Battalion etc.: 2nd Battalion.

Last name: Leahy

First name(s): James

Initials: J

Birthplace: St. Patrick's, Cork

Enlisted: Kinsale, Co. Cork

Residence: Cork

Rank: C.S.M.

Number: 8580

Date died: 25 September 1915

How died: Killed in action

Theatre of war: France & Flanders

Supplementary Notes:

Four further James Leahy's are listed in SDGW. They were born in:

Cardiff (14th Bn. Welsh regiment),

Schull in Cork (can't find him on CWGC - Died in the UK with a Garrison bn. of the Yorkshire Regiment. He enlistedat West Hartlepool),

Wapping in Middlesex (9th Rifle Brigade, Son of Daniel and Elizabeth Leahy, of 26, Padstow Place, Limehouse, London)

and another at Cork (2nd Irish Guards, Son of John and Kate Leahy, of 41, Horgan's Buildings, Magazine Rd., Cork.)

Steve.

[ian turner]

From an earlier post

Ian

[davellis]

Here are C.S.M. James Leahy's details from CWGC & SDGW:

CWGC:

Name: LEAHY

Initials: J

Nationality: United Kingdom

Rank: Company Serjeant Major

Regiment/Service: Royal Munster Fusiliers

Unit Text: 2nd Bn.

Date of Death: 25/09/1915

Service No: 8580

Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead

Grave/Memorial Reference: VII. E. 11.

Cemetery: DUD CORNER CEMETERY, LOOS

SDGW:

Name: LEAHY, James

Regiment, Corps etc.: Royal Munster Fusiliers

Battalion etc.: 2nd Battalion.

Last name: Leahy

First name(s): James

Initials: J

Birthplace: St. Patrick's, Cork

Enlisted: Kinsale, Co. Cork

Residence: Cork

Rank: C.S.M.

Number: 8580

Date died: 25 September 1915

How died: Killed in action

Theatre of war: France & Flanders

Supplementary Notes:

Four further James Leahy's are listed in SDGW. They were born in:

Cardiff (14th Bn. Welsh regiment),

Schull in Cork (can't find him on CWGC - Died in the UK with a Garrison bn. of the Yorkshire Regiment. He enlistedat West Hartlepool),

Wapping in Middlesex (9th Rifle Brigade, Son of Daniel and Elizabeth Leahy, of 26, Padstow Place, Limehouse, London)

and another at Cork (2nd Irish Guards, Son of John and Kate Leahy, of 41, Horgan's Buildings, Magazine Rd., Cork.)

Steve.

Many thanks. My grandmother, Jame's sister Madeline, was married in Cork and my mother was born there. So I guess they lived there. Grandfather, a regular, was stationed locally prior to mobilisation to Cambridge in 1914 and thence to St Nazaire. Army records and war diaries are amazing. Survived the war (GSW to head) lucky for me and retired in 1936. I must look into James.

[ckop4]

Hi davellis,

I'll PM you with more on CSM Leahy, apologies for the delay in responding to you.

CSM James Leahy, 8580 , 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, is the man.

JPC

[davellis]

Hi davellis,

I'll will PM you with more on CSM Leahy, apologies for the delay in responding to you.

CSM James Leahy, 8580 , 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, is the man.

JPC

Outstanding. I'm in China just now on david.ellis2@bluewater.com I have a lot of info on grandfather and the Irish connection but none on James. My mother thought he was killed at the end of the war but that may be rumour. Like the rumour (probably true) that their gardener had a pistol and was in the IRA.!!

[ckop4]

I have a lot of info on grandfather and the Irish connection but none on James. My mother thought he was killed at the end of the war but that may be rumour.

Just sent an email off to you re CSM Leahy.

But back to the Munsters, this dvd features footage of the Munsters returning from the Boer War in 1902. They are pictured marching out of the Barracks in Cork - http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_5336.html

JPC

[davellis]

J,

I cannot thank you enough. Having found my relation so quickly is fantastic. My next mission is to contact the Army record office to see if they hold his records. He seems to have been regular so they may have them, if not it's off to Kew.

Keep up the good work, we shall remember them.

Thanks to all gor a great website.

D.

[Johnty D]

Fabulous thread

JD

[davellis]

As a surviving relation of CSM James Leahy I would like to post this article written in his memory and taken from the Cork Examiner dated 11 October 1915. (With thanks to JPC)

(CE 11/10/1915) – LATE SERGT.-MAJOR J. LEAHY, 2nd MUNSTERS – AN APPRECIATION SKETCH.

Through the death of Company Sergt.-Major James Leahy, of the 2nd Munster Fusiliers, his regiment has lost a splendid soldier, one whose gallantry gave a lead even to its brave men, whose sense of duty was not surpassed by the highest in command, and whose character was irreproachable. Co.-Sergt.-Major Leahy was well known in Cork, particularly in the South Parish. When a boy he spent two years in the office of Mr. M. J. McMullen, who was at one time City Engineer, and he later entered a solicitor’s office. Being of an adventurous disposition, the life of a soldier appealed to him, and he joined the 2nd Munsters. Having completed seven years’ service, he re-engaged for a further term two months before the declaration of war. He left for France on August 12, 1914, was at Mons, and all the later principal engagements. Several of his letters home to his people, and those written to his friend ‘Frank,’ were with pleasure published by us, as they were some of the very best articles that have been written in connection with the war, and that is even taking into consideration the work of the brilliant literary men who are acting as correspondents for agencies or journals.

Co.-Sergt.-Major Leahy’s letters were graced by an ease of style, he possessed powers of intelligent observation, his ideas were grouped and ranged into perfect sequence, and his story, told in a choice of language that was clear, lucid and exceedingly graphic, yet charmingly simple.

The first letter we published attracted considerable attention to the writer, for it may be termed a powerful story of the war. It was dated October 26th, and he mentions that being on guard he was availing of the opportunity to send home a long letter. His light was a flickering candle, in the distance was the flash and roar of the English heavy guns, ‘each crash sending a souvenir to John German.’ He wrote – ‘I offer up an earnest prayer that each shot has sent another crowd of devils to their doom. No one knows the low, wicked deeds that these inhuman monsters are capable of committing.’ He starts his story from the 14th of August, and his description of the approach of the vessel to France, the reception and other incidents would be proudly owned to be any literary man. His feelings as he hears the first booming of the artillery and his march, carrying him all the time nearer to the scene, are so well conveyed to the reader that they grip with no small force. The climax of the first dose of shrapnel breaking in their midst he converts into a humorous situation. Sergeant Leahy only seeing the comic side of it, for it forced him and his companions to leave an almost cooked dinner on the fire of two fowls that had been procured with a good deal of chasing.

On the 27th of August he came face to face with his first Germans. He tells in his letter how he and his men were drinking cider and eating apples that a woman had given them. The enemy was in the neighbourhood, but not immediately expected, but he had ‘a feeling that they were in the vicinity.’ He then tells how a Hussar scout discovered the enemy in an orchard, how he galloped back, shouting: ‘Look out, Sergeant, there’s hundreds of them near you in the wood.’ ‘Then,’ says Sergeant-Major Leahy, ‘my heart fluttered for a moment.’ Home thoughts came into his mind; he thought of home, songs and gaiety, and he prayed if he fell ‘they would meet the news bravely.’ ‘I said an Act of Contrition, and got ready to meet – I knew not what. I was just a soldier now again. All thoughts of home had vanished. I knew it was my duty to look after and keep my little section together, and right well they did their duty. There was a minute’s silence, then the leaves on the hawthorn bushes over our heads commenced to drop. I knew it was more than the sighing of autumn wind was the cause, as a rattle of musketry burst out about 100 yards on our front…We had been firing about a minute when a little chap named Linehan, from Cork, rolled into the ditch moaning, his right arm town off from the forearm.’

Then he details a grim story of the fight. He throws a powerful light on the two-fold character of the soldier. ‘What sympathy I would have another time if I saw a person only slightly injured. Yet I looked on the dead Germans without a spark of compassion, because in this life and death it is a life for a life. While a battle is raging, everyone is bent on slaughter. Yet in a day or two later we could not get a volunteer to kill a sheep for dinner. That will show you that there is no such thing as bravery – the devil of slaughter is for s time uppermost. I should not say the Devil in this case, but God, for this is a just and holy war on our side.’ He then paints a powerful scene of the flight of the nuns and other religious from before the hellish terrors of the Prussians, and he completes his weird tale by: ‘The sight of those nuns was the first thing that awakened pity in my heart and steeled me to fight with my comrades, come what may, to the bitter end.’ Then he tells of the awful sights on the roads and in the fields of the lay refugees of murdered agricultural labourers. ‘I compare,’ said he, ‘these roads to a river of life on which floated those poor human derelicts. Oh! if the people of England or Ireland could only realise the scenes of desolation which we are daily accustomed to witness, every healthy, able-bodied man would offer his very life to crush this military maniac – a despot who wants to trample the whole universe under an iron heel – a heel that has crushed the life out of women and children. There is no end to the tales of their inhuman barbarism.’

In this letter and in others he vividly depicts the inhumanities that the conquering hordes visited on the people, or the sacrileges and the terrible desecrations. This deals with but one of his many letters, and owing to want of space several excellent parts of it are untouched.

In a letter published February 20th* he tells graphically how he felt under shell fire. ‘As a shell comes whistling towards you, your stomach seems to cringe up. You duck (as if that would be any good), you look around to see everyone doing the same. Then all laugh for being so foolish, but still it is what happens each time ….. Do you remember how I would shrink from looking at a dead person nicely laid out on a bed? What about trying to sleep with dead chaps all over the trench, above, behind and next to you? But a dead soldier is different. He is like yourself – a bundle of muddy khaki, unless it is a shell – and then I draw a veil.’

Company Sergeant Major Leahy was a most exemplary Catholic; he served Mass as often as was possible, never missing an opportunity of attending at the Divine Sacrifice and receiving Holy Communion. His profound sense of religion and his splendid character endeared him to the chaplain of the regiment, who used lovingly call him ‘my altar boy.’ Amongst a regiment of the bravest of the brave, for such is the character of the Munsters, he held a high place amongst a regiment of God-fearing, deeply religious men. He was looked on as a man of saintly life. First and last he was a true man, and Cork may well honour the memory of Company Sergeant Major James Leahy, of the 2nd Munsters.

[michel knockaert]

Hello Davellis,

Wonderful tribute to the memory of this man ...

As soon as the weather will be better I will go to Dud Corner to take a photograph of his grave.

Very friendly

Michel

[marina]

I enjoyed that article very much, Dave. Thank you.

Marina

[davellis]

Here are two accounts of his death at Loos. It is not often that soldiers deaths are reported as graphically, one expects the normal 'instantaneous - shot through the heart'. I feel proud that he was an ancestor of mine. (Again with thanks to JPC)

(CE 25/10/1915) – EXCERPT FROM A SERMON GIVEN BY REV. FR. LEONARD, OSFC, AT THE MISSION FOR THE MILITARY, ST. PATRICK’S, LOWER GLANMIRE ROAD, CORK.

‘…Amongst the ‘Munsters’ will ever remain as a household word the name of Father Gleeson. That man’s life in the firing line does not look the life of a coward. Amidst the fury of the battle now and again he snatches a little time to write words of comfort and consolation to the father or mother or sisters of some poor Tommy he attended while dying in the trenches. The goodness of the man’s heart that could find time for such an exercise of charity – and mark you, his letters are not to the rich and wealthy, but to the poor. I have here one dated 1st October, in which he tells the poor father how Sergeant-Major Jim Leahy died:-

‘I was attracted towards the spot, the really dangerous part of the firing line. At last I met four Munsters carrying a stretcher. Hastily laying it down, they ran towards me saying, ‘Father, hurry up, the poor fellow is dying, poor Sergeant-Major Leahy.’ I administered the Sacrament of Penance and Extreme Unction, and said the prayers for the dying. The bullets began to come pretty close and thick. I ordered the men return to the shelter of the trenches. Lying flat on the grass beside the stretcher, I watched the last struggling gasps of your saintly son. He was a typical Irishman and a model Catholic. He got wounded going out to bring in the body of Major Considine.’

I know not which to admire more, the heroism of Jim Leahy or the priest in that bullet-swept field lying beside the poor dying Catholic soldier. …..’

This one by Sgt. James Meehan:

Only one gun was firing now. This was one of the naval 4.7s from the village of Philosophe. It was engaged in helping out the right flank of the Brigade, which was being held up by (evidently) an immense number of enemy machine guns. It was assisted by the Munsters on the left of that position, who went at it nobly and heroically. Up and away again by small parties under the direction of Major Considine, who got killed at this point. He died a painless death. Would that I could say the same of that other noble soul who went to recover his body – C.S.M. ‘Jimmy’ Leahy. This man was wounded by an explosive bullet. None other could have inflicted that wound. I passed the prostrate form of the officer, and got slightly delayed by some entanglements, and here I got wounded. Let me mention here in parenthesis that I had no idea how hard a bullet could strike. I was out of it.

[michel knockaert]

Hello All,

sorry for my long silence but I had some problems with electricity and computer at home...

Davellis,

Thank you for this wonderful new testimony.

As promised here is a photograph of the grave of CSM James Leahy taked Sunday afternoon at Dud Corner Cemetery.

If you want the others, please send me your email address.

Very friendly

[michel knockaert]

And Loos "double crassier" from the terrace of Dud Corner Cemetery

[davellis]

Thank you very much Michel, I have been away for some time and hence my apologies for a late reply.

I will PM you for more photos.

[bobdenn]

Hello again everyone. I hope you are all well. My article on Father GLEESON has now been published in the magazine "Ireland's Own", issue number 5131, dated May 9th 2008. They can be contacted at irelands.own@peoplenews.ie if you wish a copy, alternatively all Irish and good British bookshops should stock it. Once again thanks to everyone who has contributed to this wonderful thread where I got most of my material.

Bob DENNIS.