Sergeant's stripes; Black RIR button (gutta percha maybe?); Soldier's Pay Book; Two RIR cap badges; Two RIR badges; 2 War medals; Photograph || My grandfather, Robert Lyndhurst Beatty, was born on the HMS Lyndhurst March 30 1900 in the Delaware Breakwater near Philadelphia, PA. His father, Bob Beatty, was captain of the Lyndhurst. Captain Bob Beatty died at sea when my grandfather was about six months old and he was raised in Belfast by his mother Elizabeth Barrington Beatty (d. 5 Jan 1951 and is buried in Belfast) and his aunt (Margaret Stephenson Meeke who died and is buried in Babson Park, Florida). According to family lore, Bob began trying to enlist at age 14 as soon as the war started and each time (3-4 times by the stories I was told), a family member reported him for being underage. At age 15 he told his mother, I'm going to enlist and if anyone stops me I'm going to England to enlist and if I die you will never know.\n He served in the Royal Irish Rifles in the Great War attaining the rank of Sergeant. His regimental number is 20238 and he served in Company A in the 3rd Battalion of the RIR (according to his Soldier's Pay Book that was passed down to me). His name is inadvertently spelled Beattie in that book. According to the same book, he was in Group No. 13, Code No.(?) 353 and was a Linen Finisher before the war. The book also has him listed in the 5th Royal Irish Rifles and has two postwar dates in it, Feb 17 1919 and Feb 19 1920 (incidentally, the latter date is 60 years to the day of his death, and 61 years to the day of my birth). Again according to the stories passed down in the family, he served on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic after the war, and was berated by old women for being an Irishman serving in the King's army. While his pay book is pretty empty overall, he's listed as a Corporal but at some point he achieved the rank of Sergeant. An envelope I have addressed to him that has a faint 1919 postmark lists him as 20238 Sgt. Robert Beatty, 25 Eglantine Avenue, Belfast. Granddaddy Bob left Ireland in 1929 and came to America as a citizen, having been born in American waters in 1900. He met and married my grandmother Anne Elizabeth Zernow in New York City. They married in the early 1930s and settled in Babson Park, Florida where they owned a chicken farm and raised my father Robert Patrick Beatty (retired USN Commander) and Michael Barrington Beatty. When WWII broke out, Bob tried to enlist several times but according to my dad, the US Army wanted to make him a buck private. Given the fact he was a combat veteran from WWI and a former sergeant, Bob demurred. He did spend time building ships in Tampa. Dad also told me he'd go to the airbase where RAF pilots were training and invite Irishmen to the farm for the weekend of R&R. Bob died on February 19, 1970 and is buried in Babson Park, Florida. Because he was an only child whose father died when he was an infant, we know very little about the Beatty family. He came to the US in 1929 and never returned to Ireland. We also know very little about his First World War service or experiences.

Certificate of Identity Army documenation Photographs? || My father Lance Corporal Christopher Scriven (no. 22242). I remember growing up in Cobh (Queenstown), Co. Cork. I recall a beautiful, wondferful framed picture which hung in our hall, at 16, St. Colemans Square. Its beautiful silken emboidery threads shone in the sunlight and night light. I watched my mother polish it unitl it shone with pride. In my early teens I learnt to embroider at school and so one day I asked my Mum whose fingers had made this work of art. She took me into our sitting-room and told me the following story - My Dad had joined the Irish Dublin Fusiliers in June 1915. he was in the Somme enduring horrific conditions in the trenches and became very ill in 1918. His body swelled up and he was isolated in a tent as his condition wasn't daignosed until a ship arrived in France to take him back to England to be treated. He spent a long time recovering from a renal condition in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, and so in convalesence he learned to embroider and worked as a hospital orderly until 1922, due to government changes. When he returned he was employed as a barber (his father's trade) in the three Harbour Ports. When they were passed back to the Éire goverment in 1938 he got a reference letter signed by the Garrison Adjutant R.C. Cobbold. He was entitled to a pension from the British Legion who had an agent here in Cobh, but my beloved Dad would not accept it in sympathy for all the colleagues he lost in the Battle of the Somme. We had a school in Cobh commonly called he Pension School - private education by the Sisters of Mercy called St. Marys. The Sterling pension was collected every month by Cobh residents but though it would have been a great asset when the 5 of his children, Dad couldn't take it. Deep down he never recovered from the loss of his friends whom he had served with in the Dublin Fusiliers for 3 and a half years, and never spoke of it. Dad worked in his final years with the Naval Base, Haulbowline as a runner/clerk and died in February 1972 from a massive myocardial infection all originating from his kidneys/blood pressure which he suffered all his life from the trenches. He dided unrecognised because he never spoke of the War and to this day I feel he never will, except by his family. No one in Cobh knew but his friends. (Pat O;Keeffe, August 1985). Included here are Certificate of Identity and army documentation of Christopher Scriven. 18th June Dublin enlisting 22nd August 1918 Royal Victorian Hispital || || Official document || Character certificate of Christopher Scriven, Royal Dublin Fusiliers

Patrick Dorgan was in the Royal Munster Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion (no. 8764). He was born in 1890 and was from Claren? (Clarence?) Street, Cork, Ireland. He enlisted on 6 July, 1908. He was a POW from 1915, in Limburg POW camp. He was discharged on 1 April, 1919. He received the medal trio. || Certificate of Education (degree); Certificate of Transfer to Reserves; Treatment of Enemy POW; Statement of Extraordinary experience in German Internment Camp; Photograph of Limburg Internment Camp - memorial - cross; Royal Munster Fusiliers Old Comrade Association dinner menu, 1929, with signatures (back and front); Photograph of Patrick Dorgan in uniform; Photograph of Patrick Dorgan group - POW; Photograph of Patrick Dorgan group - post-war (Patrick is back left). || || Patrick Dorgan || Statement of extraordinary circumstances in German Internment Camps of Patrick Dorgan || Statement of extraordinary circumstances in German Internment Camps || Official document || || Official document || Patrick Dorgan || Statement of extraordinary circumstances in German Internment Camps || Statement of extraordinary circumstances in German Internment Camps of Patrick Dorgan (2nd scan) || || Certificate of transfer to reserves || Patrick Dorgan || Official document || Certificate of transfer to reserves of Patrick Dorgan || || Patrick Dorgan || Certificate of Education of Patrick Dorgan || Official document || || Prisoners of War || Remembrance || Limburg Camp || Photo of cross erected by Irish Prisoners of War commemorating comrades who died at Limburg Prison Camp, Germany. || Photograph || Photo of cross erected by Irish Prisoners of War commemorating comrades who died at Limburg Prison Camp, Germany || || Royal Munster Fusilier's Old Comrades' Association || The Royal Munster Fusiliers' Old Comrades' Association Dinner Menu || The Royal Munster Fusiliers' Old Comrades' Association Dinner Menu. Folded open to show front and back, with signatures written on the back. || Remembrance || Memorabilia || || The Royal Munster Fusiliers' Old Comrades' Association Dinner Menu. Folded open to show inside pages, with menu on left and toasts on right. || Remembrance || The Royal Munster Fusiliers' Old Comrades' Association Dinner Menu || Memorabilia || Royal Munster Fusiliers - Old Comrades' Association || || Patrick Dorgan || Photo of Patrick Dorgan in group of soldiers || Photograph || || Photo of Patrick Dorgan || Photo of Patrick Dorgan in uniform || Patrick Dorgan || Photograph