According to their Lights by Neil Richardson

Author:Neil Richardson [Richardson, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War I, Europe, Ireland, Revolutionary, General, Great Britain
ISBN: 9781848894952
Google: GQiWDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd
Published: 2015-09-21T00:35:39+00:00

Major Albert Clerke from Castlemartyr, Co. Cork, later a lieutenant-colonel (Mr & Mrs Robert William Boyles)

Albert Clerke, a native of Castlemartyr, Co. Cork, survived both the Easter Rising and the First World War. After living in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, and later in Dún Laoghaire, he died in the Mellifont Nursing Home, Dún Laoghaire, in 1934, aged sixty-six.

On 26 July 1916, the day after Rosborough was asked to resign, his wife, Erdie Rosborough, wrote to Queen Mary explaining the situation and begging that the queen consider the ‘sad case of one of Your Majesty’s loyal Irish subjects.’ In September and again in October, after the Simon Commission had completed its work, Rosborough’s father-in-law, Rev. Joseph McKinistry of Randalstown, Co. Antrim, who had personally recruited about a hundred men for the 36th (Ulster) Division from his congregation, wrote to various politicians and to the War Office, petitioning them to reinstate his son-in-law and quoting from the findings of the Simon Commission, which completely cleared Rosborough’s name and his involvement with the shootings. The Ulster Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson also took an interest in the case; but after petitioning the King not to become involved, the War Office ultimately decided to cancel Rosborough’s resignation, and four months after being forced to leave the army he was restored to the rank of major in November 1916 and returned to duty.

That same month Major Rosborough and Major Fletcher-Vane were charged with the ‘illegal arrest and imprisonment’ of Alderman James Kelly. The case was later settled out of court.

Major Rosborough landed in France on 20 December 1916. Captain Arthur Weir wrote in a letter to Captain Bowen-Colthurst that ‘Major Rosborough went out to the front last week. We went to see him off at the station. He was quite cheery but Mrs. R. says she does not think he will be able to remain long as he is not strong.’ She was right. After serving with the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles for four months, Major Rosborough was re-designated a permanent base officer, removed from his battalion and the trenches, and appointed town major at Bully-Grenay. He remained there until November 1917, when he was evacuated home, now physically unfit for further overseas service, and returned to his old position as second-in-command of the 3rd Royal Irish Rifles in Belfast.

After the war Major Rosborough served with the 30th Battalion of the King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, a battalion raised in France in May 1919 and disbanded in April 1920, after which (arranged by Sir Edward Carson) he served as an education officer and unit instructor in the 10th (Prince of Wales’s Own) Royal Hussars, firstly in Canterbury, Kent, and then in Ennis, Co. Clare, when the regiment moved there in May 1920 during the War of Independence. Finally, in 1921 he performed the same role with the 1st Northamptonshire Regiment.

Rosborough was then informed that he was soon to be demobilised. He wrote to the army in December 1920 in the hope of finding a new role that would allow him to remain serving.

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