Category: People

Today marks the centenary of the sinking of the Royal Mail Ship Leinster (10am October 10th 1918), after it was struck by two torpedoes from a German U-Boat 16 miles  off the Dublin coast near the Kish Lighthouse. Commemorations are taking place in Dún Laoghaire for the 501+ passengers and crew died that day, the worst maritime disaster on the Irish Sea. Many of the passengers were military who were returning from leave in Ireland.

Among them was  Dennis Creedon, of Laught, the son of Jeremiah and Norah Creedon, who was returning to Britain after leave at home.  He was 31 years and left a wife Julia behind him. He was the last local person from Millstreet to die in World War I.

He had moved to Wales where he was working in the mines. He married Julia Moynihan in 1913, and when the war broke out, like his three brother in laws, he joined the British Army, seemingly like many others, for a better income to support his family. His time was apparently uneventful, and he was based in Bedford. He received a promotion to Corporal and transferred to the RAF on 17th September 1918 (#301441), where his trade within the army was as a “Hospital Orderly”. Having been on leave, he was returning to Britain, when he was drowned that day. His body was recovered, and was sent to Millstreet by train where it was waked in St. Patrick’s Church, and the following day buried at Kilcorney Cemetery with his family. He is also commemorated at the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton.

[read more …] “WWI: Denis Creedon, Laught (1887-1918)”

In 1906, 17 year old Patrick Donohue from Bolomore, Rathcoole, a farmer’s son, one of nine children, arrived in Lawrence, Massachusetts, looking for work. He probably never imagining that a few years later he would be hailed a hero in France, earning a Purple Heart and a Silver Star.

Paddy, as he was known, was a Mill Worker in Lawrence, enlisted in the United States Army in 1917 to fight in World War I. He was assigned to Company G, 328th Infantry, 82nd All American Division. After training, he was sent to Europe in May 1918. On October 8th, 1918, he was one of 17 American soldiers that were tasked with taking out German machine gun nests near Châtel-Chéhéry on the French-German border. Hugely outnumbered by the Germans, they broke through the German line took a large number of prisoners, but then came under huge gun fire and suffered casualties, Donoghue also being wounded, but they still managed to take out the machine gunners, causing the Germans to withdraw, allowing the Allies to get behind the German lines.

G Company was known to the public because of the 1941 movie, Sergeant York, starring Garry Cooper (see the movie clips below). Sgt.  York got the credit and Gary Cooper got the Academy Award. But as we know, one man alone was not responsible for the German defeat. Private Patrick Paddy J. Donohue of Lawrence was one of the unsung heroes of that battle.

[read more …] “WWI: Patrick J. Donohue of Bolomore”

At the far end of Drishane Cemetery lie the remains of William E. Dennehy,  who died serving the U.S. army, a hundred years ago today near the France-Belgium border. He was the second-last Millstreet man to die in World War I, only four weeks before the armistice that finished the war.

Born in Knocknakilla in 1890 to Daniel Dennehy and Margaret Murphy, he had and older brother Jeremiah and a younger sister Mary. Life must have been tough as his father died of TB when he was only three, so it was likely that the family was very poor. His grandfather lived with them until he died in 1906, and by 1911 we know that both boys were working as agricultural labourers. Two years later William moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where his aunt Mary and her husband Patrick Long (of Aubane) were living. He worked as a leather handler at the Armour Leather Company, and sent what spare money he had back home to support his family, but in 1917 he got drafted into the American  army. He didn’t want to go as he stated in his draft registration that he was the breadwinner for his mother and sister. It didn’t matter. From September 1917 he trained in Camp Devens in the 301st Infantry, “Bostons Own”. In June 1918 he became an American citizen, and was transported to war in Europe aboard the S.S. Cedric, leaving New York on July 6th 1918. Landing in Europe the 301st was disbanded, and William was assigned to the 163rd, and two weeks later to the 58th Infantry, part of 8th Infantry Brigade, which was assigned to the 4th Division.
He saw action in Toulon, St. Mihiel, and finally in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, where he was reported missing on October 7th 1918 at Bois de Fays, about 3km west of the town of Brieulles-sur-Meuse.
He was buried there, but the American public wanted their fallen boys brought home. The French blocked the repatriations for three years, but relented, and eventually on May 21st 1922, sixty-four US soldiers of Irish birth arrived in Dublin at the request of their families. William was one of those, and he was brought to Millstreet and given his final resting place in Drishane Cemetery.

The Dennehy family around 1900. Left to right: Margaret (mother), Jeremiah, Mary, and William

[read more …] “WWI: William Edward Dennehy, Knocknakilla (1890 – 1918)”