Anzacs and Ireland by Jeff Kildea

Author:Jeff Kildea
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNSW Press

The grave of Private James Cowan (Jeff Kildea)

The next day his uncle arrived at the hospital and arranged for his body to be taken to Ireland, where he was laid to rest in the family plot at Balmoral Cemetery, Belfast, alongside his grandparents and an uncle, Captain William Craig, who died on 9 June 1917 off Le Havre when his ship, HMS Harbury, was torpedoed. A cousin, Lieutenant James Basil Cowan, also from Melbourne, was killed in October 1918 while flying over Belgium in a Bristol aircraft of the 48th Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF). He was one of the 200 members of the AIF, including aviation pioneer Charles Kingsford-Smith, who transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (later the RAF) in 1917.37

Private John Joseph Cahill (Mitchelstown Catholic Churchyard, County Cork)

Another Australian buried in a family plot is Private John Joseph Cahill of the 23rd Battalion who was a 26-year-old butcher from Ballarat when he enlisted in September 1914. He embarked on the Wiltshire in March 1916 and after training in England proceeded to France in September, joining his unit on 1 November. One week later he received a wound to the head, necessitating his return to England and admission to Reading War Hospital. He was transferred the following month to the 2nd Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Southall near London, and, pending his return to France, was given furlough, which he overstayed by four days, for which he received four days field punishment and the docking of eight days pay.

On 20 January 1917, he rejoined his unit in France, but two months later he was wounded again during the fighting near Arras, this time in the right thigh, fracturing his femur. At first he was treated at the 11th Stationary Hospital at Rouen in France, but in mid-April he was transferred to England. On admission to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, near Southampton, his general condition was reported as good, with the wound still discharging but clearing rapidly. His medical report also indicated that he was unfit for further active service, with the consequence that he would be returned to Australia for discharge. He continued to do well until the middle of May, when complications developed and septicaemia set in, with the result that he died of his wounds on 17 June 1917. His uncle, who was present at his death, arranged for the body to be taken to Ireland, where it was laid to rest in the Catholic churchyard at Mitchelstown, County Cork. The headstone, which is adjacent to the church, lists the names of eight members of the Cahill family and the months and years of their deaths so that the inscription for Private Cahill reads simply, ‘John J Cahill, June 1917’ with no indication that he was a member of the AIF or that he died on active service.

Private John Parnell Darmody (Powerstown [St John] Catholic Churchyard, County Tipperary)

It is not clear whether the omission of the service information from Cahill’s headstone was deliberate, though it is possible given the anti-war feeling in Ireland, as discussed in chapter 6.

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