19 January 2005 – Ireland’s Memorial Records

Launch of the CD Rom publication of Ireland’s Memorial Records 1914-1918 at the National War Memorial Garden’s Islandbridge Dublin on January 19th at 3.30pm by Minister John O’Donoghue T.D. Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism.

The CD Rom records the names of more than 49,000 Irishmen who died in the Great War. The rich tapestry of historical and genealogical detail includes the forename, surname, date of death, rank, regiment and regimental number, and age. In most cases the soldier’s county or place of birth and the place and date of death are recorded.The contemporary introduction to the original volumes published in 1923, against the backdrop of the emerging Free State and a world convulsed by the “War to end all Wars”, is recorded on the CD ROM and makes for fascinating reading. Beautiful artwork by the renowned Irish artist Harry Clarke completes this unique production.

All 32 counties in Ireland lost men in the Great War. More than 5,000 from Antrim, 4,800 from Dublin and 3,000 from Cork alone. Indeed it is likely that every village, town and city in Ireland at the time was touched in some way by the loss. Of the ages recorded the majority of men were in the 20’s –however Lance Corporal Charles H.S. Brown from Ferns in Wexford was only 15 when he died on 6th April 1915 and Private Michael Carr from Kiltogher, Carrick, Co Leitrim was 50 when he died on 28th June 1916 in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq).

Stories

Each recorded name commemorates a life ended prematurely and violently and a family left bereaved. The story of their lives and the legacy of their untimely deaths is retold and experienced through the generations to the present day.

• Sergeant Andrew Kinsella, 1882-1918 was shot dead by a sniper near Le Hamel on Good Friday 29th March 1918. Andrew was raised in Bridgefoot St, set-up home for his wife Mary Sherry and family off Oxmantown Rd. in Dublin 7 and worked as a postman in the Drumcondra area before the war. His last child of six (a daughter) was born in June 1916. (Sergeant Kinsella’s grandson, Seán Connolly a senior Revenue official based in Dublin, will be in attendance at the launch).

• In January 1916, Sapper Jim Dempsey Burroughs from Clara Co Offaly, along with the rest of the allies, left the Gallipoli peninsula. Jim’s notebook records that the Turks “shelled us leaving, lucky to get away”. Tragically, three of Jim’s brothers never returned home to Clara. George Dempsey Burroughs was wounded in Bailleau near Ypres. He died from his wounds on the 4 February 1915. Frank, who was a corporal in the 2nd Battalion of the Connaught Rangers, was killed in the first few weeks of the war at Mons on the 22nd August 1914. Luke a gunner with the Royal Garrison Artillery was killed near Ypres on the 21st April 1914. The surviving brother, Jim, died in Ireland in 1946. His daughter Marie Dunne lives in Inchicore, Dublin and will be in attendance at the launch.

• Ernest Julian, the Reid Professor of Law, TCD, died on the way to
Gallipoli in 1915. Presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese subsequently occupied that post.

END

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