As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I have been searching for a particuliar picture of my great-grandfather Christopher Whelan and his wife Elizabeth Gavin. Well, I found a copy of it (along with other really interesting pictures). And here it is:
Christopher was in the Royal Irish Regiment during World War I, and was wounded towards the end of the war. He received a gunshot wound to the right hand on 19th October 1914 and lost three fingers, as you can see in the picture. This may very well have saved his life, as I will explain later.
A relative has done a lot of research on the exploits of Christopher's military career. I shall try to condense it down in this post. The two brothers Christopher and Thomas Whelan enlisted in the army in 1900. Here you can see the two of them in their military uniforms:
Christopher is the man standing up, while Thomas (his younger brother) is seated. The career's of both men are too long to discuss together so I will concentrate on Christopher at the moment. My source for Christopher's military career is the British Army Pension Records 1914-20.
Christopher enlisted in January 1900, he was only 19 years old. He first enlisted in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers but transferred to his brother's regiment, the Royal Irish Regiment. We get a good description of Christy (as he was more commonly known): he was 5.5ft, 116lbs, chest measurement of 35in, dark complexion, brown eyes, and black hair.
After enlisting Christy spent 3 years in South Africa in the Boer War, and three years in India. He was in South Africa from 22/7/1901 until 01/01/05, during which time he was court-martialed twice! The first was
striking his superior officer and sentenced to 102 days imprisonment. The second
was sleeping on his post while on active service and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment. He was in India from 22/1/05 until 25/10/07, after which he finally returned home to Dublin. Upon his return he married Elizabeth Gavin, entered the Reserves, and got on with his life. The 1911 census records hime living in Chancery St with Elizabeth and his first child, also called Christopher. On the 4th of August 1914 the British Army issued orders to mobilise for war and on the 6th August 1914 Christy rejoined his regiment in Clonmel in preparation for leaving for England. He was 34 years old and had three young children: Christopher, Maria, and Denis.
On the 16th August, Christy landed in France, and together with the rest of the British Expeditionary Force, was sent to the northern flank of the french armies around the town of Mons. The 23rd August saw the Royal Irish Regiments acting as reserves for the 8th brigade, defending the line around Mons near the Belgian border. Compared to the enemy the BEF were poorly equipped and ill-prepared. Although the BEF inflicted plenty of damage on the German side and cause many casualtied, by the end of the day Royal Irish losses counted 300 officers and men killed, wounded, or missing.
Early morning on the following day, the Royal Irish Regiment began their retreat from Mons. At Le Cateau the retreating BEF decided to stop and fight. On the 26th of August the Germans planned to shell the British infantry into submission before launching the main assualt. During the fighting the rearguard of the 8th Battalion held the German forces at bay, allowing the rest of the British Division to retreat safely. But the rearguard suffered heavy losses and only 200 of this group returned to their own lines.
The Royal Irish Regiment had a reasonably calm period for the start of September. From the 12th until the 21st they were involved in minor incidents.
It was on the 10th of October 1914 that Christy was promoted to the rank of corporal. On the 19th orders were received to attack Le Pilly. They reached Le Pilly but came under some artillery fire with little assistance being offered until the following morning. There were over 200 casualties that day, and 161 wounded men were evacuated. Among them was most likely Christy as his service records note that he received a gunshot wound to the right hand on the 19th October. This was when he lost 3 fingers. Unable to hold his weapon he was of no assistance to his battalion and therefore evacuated that night. The following day the Germans realised that the Irish were isolated in front of British lines and launched artillery fire. Coupled with this were snipers and machine-guns. By 4pm the Germans were attacking from everyside. From the Royal Irish Regiment the Germans took 300 prisoners. Only 30 returned to British lines. The gunshot wound Christy received and his subsequent evacuation undoubtedly saved his life. Christy was reported wounded again on the 25th October, possibly shrapnel to his lower back.
Christy was mentioned in the dispatches. On 20th November Field Marshall French wrote a dispatch to the Secretary of State for War stating: ...I have the honour to bring to notice names of those whom I recommend for gallant and distinguished service in the field. Included was Whelan, No. 6817 Lance-Corporal C.
Christy returned home before being sent to India for almost 4 years. He returned home and was discharge as no longer physically fit for war service. My relative Willie Walsh (whose research I heavily relied on) summed up the contribution of Christy and all other Irishmen during WWI succinctly:
"Up to half a million Irishmen fought in the Great War, of whom some 50,000 died. However only the sacrifices of roughly one third of these men, the men of Ulster, have been remembered and commemmorated while the participation of over 300,000 men of the Nationalist tradition have been virtually written out of history.
These men were...British as sure as a Scot or a Welsh man is British now. They joined to escape poverty, they joined to fight for the freedom of small Nations, they joined through a sense of adventure or...a sense of duty.
Ireland was a very different place before Easter 1916...People don't like to be told that the reception the rebels [during the Rising] received was very hostile. So hostile in fact that the British army had to protect them from the citizens of Dublin... Christopher Whelan and the other soldiers who fought with the Irish Regiment were brave men who fought, suffered, and dies for what they believed. They did what very few of us would do today and they should be looked up to..."
In a previous post I talked about the military history of my great-grandfather Christopher Whelan. I have now found out that Christopher's brother-in-law was also enlisted in the British Army. His name was James Gavan (sister to Elizabeth Gavin, Christopher's wife - the difference in spelling is proof that an open mind where Irish surnames are concerned is vital).
This is an image of St. Lawrence St, Drogheda from the early 20th century, just to give a sense of the area where they would have lived and worked. The Donagh's appear again in the 1910 Census records, living in the same house: 
So John's parents were John Sr. and Rose Byrne. The record shows that not only was he born in the workhouse (or his parents were living there at the time, I suspect that Rose was), but he was born out of wedlock. I can find no record of John and Rose ever marrying after John's birth, and it is difficult to trace Rose.
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