On 19 January 2005 John O’Donoghue TD, Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, launched Enneclan’s CD-Rom publication of Ireland’s Memorial Records 1914–1918 at the National War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge, Dublin.
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. Retained is the introduction to the original volumes, first published in 1923 against the backdrop of the emerging Free State and a world convulsed by the ‘war to end all wars’, as is the beautiful artwork by Harry Clarke.
All 32 counties of 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 was touched in some way by the loss. Of the ages recorded the majority were in the 20s. However, Lance Corporal Charles H.S. Brown from Ferns, Co. Wexford, was only 15 when he died on 6 April 1915, and Private Michael Carr from Kiltogher, Carrick, Co. Leitrim, was 50 when he died on 28 June 1916 in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq).
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 are retold and experienced through the generations to the present day.
Sergeant Andrew Kinsella (b. 1882) was shot dead by a sniper near Le Hamel on Good Friday, 29 March 1918. Andrew was raised in Bridgefoot Street, Dublin, set up home for his wife, Mary Sherry, and family off Oxmantown Road 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.
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 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 22 August 1914. Luke, a gunner with the Royal Garrison Artillery, was killed near Ypres on 21 April 1914. The surviving brother, Jim, died in Ireland in 1946.
Ernest Julian, Reid Professor of Law, TCD, died on the way to Gallipoli in 1915. Presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese subsequently occupied that post.
The complete CD-Rom publication can be purchased online from Eneclann at www.eneclann.ie. An extract from the CD-Rom comprising a searchable database of the names and year of death of the Irishmen who died in the First World War can now be searched online at the website of Irish Genealogy Ltd, www.irishgenealogy.ie.
