IRELAND’S
CALL
For my family and friends
IRELAND’S CALL
Irish Sporting Heroes who
Fell in the Great War
STEPHEN WALKER
Published in 2015 by Merrion Press
8 Chapel Lane
Sallins
Co. Kildare
© 2015 Stephen Walker
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
978-1-78537-018-2 (paper)
978-1-78537-019-9 (PDF)
978-1-78537-021-2 (Epub)
978-1-78537-020-5 (Kindle)
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Printed by Scandbook AB, Sweden.
Contents
Chapter 1 – An Officer and a Gentleman
Chapter 5 – Death of an Airman
Chapter 6 – The Battle of Balmoral
Chapter 7 – Ireland’s Lost Champion
Chapter 8 – Red, Blue and Khaki
Chapter 11 – For Club and Country
Chapter 12 – Goals and Gunfire
Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to acknowledge all the family members of the men featured in Ireland’s Call, who answered my questions and requests for photographs and letters. Thank you for sharing your family history with a wider audience, and I hope you feel this book has been a worthwhile endeavour.
I wanted to write the stories of the men because I felt their sporting and military lives were worth recording. I was fascinated by the fact that well-known sportsmen were often prepared to give up their careers and volunteer for war, and I wanted to understand why so many came forward to enlist.
I am particularly grateful to the relatives of Basil Maclear, and my thanks go to John Maclear Bickford, Ann Maclear Tyler and Giles Bickford. I am also grateful to Eldrith Ward, who is a relative of Harry Sloan.
During my research I received enormous help from many archivists, in particular staff at the National Archives in London and at Emory University in the United States, who supplied me with copies of Robert Gregory’s family letters.
I enjoyed working with Conor Graham at Merrion Press, who shared my enthusiasm for this book, and who showed great faith in this idea right from those early meetings back in 2013. His colleague Lisa Hyde was involved in those early discussions, and has been a great sounding board during this entire process.
I am also indebted to the design team who have produced a wonderful publication with a dramatic cover.
My long-suffering colleagues at BBC Northern Ireland and at the BBC in Westminster have always supported my writing projects, and some even claim to have read my previous books. A special thanks must go to all those in Broadcasting House in Belfast, particularly my fellow residents in the ‘portacabin’.
My friends Mark Carruthers and Philip Orr read a first draft of this work and offered helpful suggestions. I value their guidance, wise counsel and came to enjoy their grammar tutorials.
Details of matches and sporting achievements have been supplied by archivists who are attached to schools, colleges and sporting organisations across the UK and Ireland. Many administrators and officials work in a voluntary capacity and I was often taken aback by their enthusiasm for this project.
With the exception of the GAA players those chronicled in these pages were all international sportsmen. I know my selection may generate debate and if you have any observations or extra detail about the men please feel free to contact me on Twitter @IrelandsCall15.
Over the past two years many people from a wide variety of sporting bodies have all helped me put this book together.
My journey into the world of Irish cricket began with a phone call to Robin Walsh, a former BBC Northern Ireland controller who has been a leading light in Irish cricket for many years. He put me in touch with Edward Liddle, John Boomer and Barry Chambers, who were a great help.
My investigations into the archives of Irish rugby were aided by Willow Murray, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of past players and events. I am also grateful to Shane Logan, Claire McAuley, Neil Brittan and Clodagh Miskelly at Ulster Rugby. Declan Meade and Declan O’Brien at the IRFU and Gerry Hegarty and Henry Tighe at Monkstown Rugby Club were also very keen to help this project.
Peter Jackson pointed me in lots of good directions as I tried to track down photos and details