Sheehan O'Connor family from Cork -- seven served on the Western Front
Captain DD Sheehan (1873-1948) was a journalist, barrister and Member of Parliament (MP) for mid-Cork, Ireland (1901-1918). He served as Captain in the 9th Royal Munster Fusiliers (RMF) (Service) Battalion of the 16th (Irish) Division and the 2nd (Regular) RMF Battalion, with the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front in France 1915-16. Daniel Desmond Sheehan, despite being aged 41 and father of a large family, enlisted at Buttevant, county Cork in November 1914. Born near Kanturk, county Cork, his family suffered eviction in 1880 during the Land War. He championed from an early age the labourers’ cause and co-founded in 1894, the Irish Land and Labour Association, later its President. Standing on a Labour platform, he was elected in 1901 as youngest Irish MP at Westminster. DD Sheehan actively implemented the 1903 (Wyndham) Land (Purchase) Act and the 1906 Labourers (Ireland) Act, providing ten thousands of cottages on an acre of land for rural farm workers. In 1909 he launched with William O’Brien MP a new political movement, the “All-for-Ireland League”, which sought an All-Ireland Dominion Home Rule settlement with the inclusion of Ulster. At the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, DD Sheehan and his party voiced enthusiastic support for the Allied cause in Europe. In the spring and summer of 1915 he undertook the organisation of three special voluntary enlistment campaigns in Limerick, Clare and Cork and received Captaincy and company command in July. Sheehan served during 1915/16 in the trenches with the 9th RMF Battalion, which he had largely raised, on the Loos Salient in France. He was joined by six family members, including his three sons, 2nd Lieutenants Daniel J, Martin J and Michael J Sheehan. His two elder sons were killed on active service: Daniel with the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) piloting a Sopwith Pup, killed near Noyelles, France, in May 1917 and Martin as observer and gunner in a Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8, killed near Cambrai, France, in October 1918. DD Sheehan’s brother-in-law Sergeant Robert O’Connor (Leinster Regiment) was killed July 1917 at Passchendaele in Belgium. His daughter Eileen (VAD nurse and ambulance driver) and his brother Private John Sheehan (Irish Guards) were severely disabled. His third son Michael, who enlisted at aged 15 1/2 (RMF), was at 16 the youngest commissioned officer in the army on the Western Front and was twice wounded (later Brigadier Michael J Sheehan OBE CBE, Indian Army, WW2 Burma Campaign). Whilst in the trenches at the front, DD Sheehan contributed a series of widely quoted articles in his own name to the Daily Express, Irish Times and Cork Constitution newspapers. Re-assigned for health reasons at the end of 1916 to the 3rd RMF (Reserve) Battalion, he acted as a Lewis gun and Anti-Gas Instructor. Due to ill-health and partial deafness from shell fire, DD Sheehan was de-commissioned from the army in January 1918, retaining the honorary rank of Captain. During the 'Irish Conscription Crisis' in April, he unequivocally denounced the British intention of imposing conscription on Ireland, in a dramatic anti-conscription speech made in the House of Commons at Westminster. He and his party did not contest the December 1918 Irish general election. Intimidations by militant extremists who opposed his earlier recruiting, necessitated that he and his family abandon their Cork city home and move to London, where Sheehan had just failed to gain election for Labour. After earlier circumstances ceased to be an impediment following the end of the Civil War, the family returned to Dublin in 1926, as his ailing wife died.
A museum display case (item 1) showing a collection of memorabilia, photographs and artefacts, relating to the seven Sheehan O'Connor family members who served in the Great War on the Western Front, followed by 24 photographs (items 2 to 25) with details of their individual stories.
CONTRIBUTOR
Niall O'Siochain
DATE
/
LANGUAGE
eng
ITEMS
1
INSTITUTION
Europeana 1914-1918
PROGRESS
METADATA
Discover Similar Stories
From Ballycumber to the Western Front
16 Items
This story is about Denis Geraghty from Ballycumber, County Offaly (formerly the Kings County), Ireland. Denis joined the Connaught Rangers in November 1915 in Athlone Barracks, Ireland and he was killed in action near the town of Strazeele on the 13th of April 1918. He was my Mother's uncle, her Father's youngest and only brother. He was almost the forgotten one of the family as he was killed and buried far from home. Following the death of my own Mother I contacted a cousin of mine who had some postcards that Denis had sent from France. With these I started the research that resulted in producing this story of his short military career. Hopefully by telling his story in this way he will be remembered by family members and others for generations to come. May he rest in peace. || Memoir with text and images (16 pp) || || PDF Slides, Memoir with text and images (16 pp) || Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland. || Memoir || Denis Geraghty
Sheehan O'Connor family WWI Collection | Museum Display Case
1 Item
Museum display-case shows photographs of: top right - Captain DD Sheehan MP (RMF) with son Lieut Michael J Sheehan (RMF); top left Lieut Daniel J Sheehan (RFC) in a Sopwith Pup with two RFC pin-badges, below him his brother Lieut Martin J (RAF) in a R.E.8 biplane with two single wings and an identity tag; bottom left their uncle-in-law Sgt Robert O’Connor (Leinster Rgm); end images are of Pte John Sheehan (Irish Guards) and Eileen Sheehan (VAD front nurse). Other items below right: the Great War Campaign Medals as awarded on their medal cards to all family members, the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal. Also DD Sheehan’s disability ‘Silver War Badge’; his officer's military whistle (since included) and three RMF buttons. The handgun, a Walther PPK 7.65mm automatic, was DD Sheehan’s personal pistol he carried with him for protection whenever in the county Cork region after the war. Stories researched and items collected over many years from various family members by Niall O’Siochain (grandson of DD Sheehan). The display-case which I designed and created is on permanent display at the Military Museum, Collins Barracks, Cork city, Ireland.
Elgy Bentley on the Western Front
1 Item
3 photographs of Elgy (Elgie?) in uniform; 1 photograph of his sister Annie at his grave; 1 postcard of Elgy and his comrades (Duke of Wellingtons), written and signed by Elgy (3rd from the right at the back); 3 medals || Joseph Elgy Bentley, born on 6th November 1893 at 15 Retford Place, Bradford, 5th of 6 children to Joseph, a police inspector, and Sarah Ann nee Smith. He is the brother of the contributor's grandfather. At the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, the 4th Battalion Duke of Wellingtons (West Yorkshire Regiment) is on its way to summer camp in Scarborough when they are turned round and sent to barracks in York, then assigned to Coastal Defence duties in East Yorkshire/North Lincolnshire. Elgy enlists on 7th September 1914 and joins this Battalion, writing home (postmarked Grimsby) to describe musketry drill, night manoeuvres and the weather! Elgy's war record shows him arriving in France on 14 April 1915 from where the regiment is posted in the Levante region. They see action here in 1915 and as the war progresses they take part in the major battle on the Somme where they suffer terrible casualties and at 3rd Ypres where they fight for the Peter Pan trenches. At some point in 1917 they are moved closer to the Belgian coast where they are gassed. Many men are killed or injured. We do not know how or the events leading up to it but at about this time Elgy is evacuated to hospital. Family folklore would indicate shell shock but nobody really knows. After recuperation, Elgy is commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on 25 September 1917 and he goes back to France and, as the war draws on, the Regiment takes part in its last major set piece battle on the Lys river on 25 April 1918. They then advance and chase the Germans north east across France towards Valenciennes where, having survived the horrors of the Western Front for over 3 years, Elgy is shot by a sniper and dies of his wounds on 11 October 1918, only 1 month short of the Armistice. He is 24. Many of the Duke of Wellingtons who died at this time were buried where they fell by their surviving comrades in arms. Some time later the bodies were exhumed and reburied in the Wellington Cemetery at Rieux en Cambresis to where surviving relatives including his brother Eric and sister Annie make the journey in 1921.