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IT IS THE little details that still reverberate one hundred years later.
There is almost a painful amount of personal minutiae and vivid trivia in a collection of letters sent to young Irish woman Monica Roberts by soldiers away at World War I.
Monica Roberts lived in Stillorgan, Dublin with her father, a reverend and fellow of Trinity College. She ran a volunteer group called The Band of Helpers to the Soldiers, who fundraised to send necessities and small gifts to soldiers battling in the trenches and on the frontline.
But, it seems from the letters sent to her by those soldiers she supported, that the little notes included by Monica and the group in those care packages meant the most to them all.
These letters from soldiers, mostly in the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers (RDF), were donated by Monica’s daughter Mary Shackleton and the RDF Association to the Dublin City Archives. Some 453 of these letters and postcards were digitised and transcribed and are now fully searchable on the Dublin City Library and Archive’s dublinheritage.ie. You can browse them here.
The letters are unfailingly polite, grateful and full of good wishes – in stark contrast to the daily slaughter of World War I that modern history students now understand was the fate waiting so many of the soldiers.
George A Hillman, a sergeant major in the Royal Flying Corps, wrote on New Year’s Day 1915, and told Monica that spirits were still high. Provisions at that stage in the war appeared to be in good supply with Hillman writing that on Christmas Day, “we had a very nice time indeed, the men all contributing a franc each and that was supplemented by our officers”.
Their Christmas dinner consisted of:
Roast Pork, Potatoes & Cabbage.Xmas pudding and pineapple.After which there were oranges, apples, figs and plenty of smoking material and drinks.Considering we are at war we all considered ourselves fortunate to be so well off.
Little dramatic vignettes from the war are related through the soldiers’ letters to Monica. Wesley Clarke, also in the Flying Corps, wrote to Monica seven times from 7 January to 26 November 1915. In one, he tells how one of the gifts – a scarf – she sent in a package had saved him from a sticky situation.
He tells how he had been returning with an important dispatch when his motorcycle chain broke and he was left stranded in the middle of nowhere. Another motorcyclist came along an hour later but he had no way of towing Wesley.
We thought we were done in again, when I hit on the happy idea of your scarf. I was afraid it would never stand the great strain, but it did wonderfully & it was the means of carrying [?] me home about 15 miles & enabled me to deliver my despatch.Now what do you think of that.That old scarf I will never part with, although it is stretched to twice its original length!
Monica had her own personal heartache and concerns about the progress of the war. She appears to ask after the wellbeing of her brother-in-law, a Captain Conner, as several of the soldiers give her accounts of having seen him, and passing on her good wishes. One wrote:
I saw Captain Conner a few days ago and he looked quite well then, passing me in a car. I know he is very busy so I expect that accounts for no letters having reached you.
For many, what seem like mundane gifts now (one B. Weir writes that he was “delighted” by the “warm underclothing & tobacco” Monica sends) were lifelines for many.
But at times too, the humour in the notes is black and gives away the terrible conditions in which the soldiers endure – William De Combe, a driver, writes bleakly:
I am not quite dead yet but very nearly. I have got another visitor, a beautiful cough not a beautiful doll and it’s clinging like ivy to me so we are all merry and bright you can bet.
Monica managed to send letters to soldiers taken prisoner of war by the Germans, and there are short telegrams of acknowledgement from Irish PoWs in the collection.
There is reference too, to events closer to home for Monica, as news of the 1916 Rising drifts over to France and Belgium. Private Joseph Clark says that many of the Irish troops are worried by the news from home. He also foresees the dire reception Irish-born soldiers will face from the Irish State and members of the Irish public for having fought the Germans as troops in the British Army:
We have just had some men returned off leave, and they tell us that Dublin is in ruins. It is awfully hard to lose one’s life out here, without being shot at home… We of the 2nd Battn the Dublins would ask for nothing better that the rebels should be sent out here and have an encounter with some of their (“so called Allies” “the Germans”)
Ultimately though, the personal tragedies and suffering of these young people facing hitherto unseen levels of destruction and trauma are what press through the archive.
The words of one of the most prolific correspondents, Private Edward Mordaunt, who mainly wrote to Monica’s sister, K. Roberts, still sear a century after he committed them to paper.
He is eloquent on the daily hardships:
We can cook anything we are all experts, we are experts at making tea for that is all we ever get to make and very little of that. How we make it is this 1st Mix tea and sugar together in one bag 2nd Get mess tin full of water which holds a quart 3rd Put one hand full of mixed tea and sugar in cold water 4th Light a fire 5th Put mess tin on and leave till boiled. Then we put the milk in. IF any which we very seldome have. That is for Breakfast, Dinner and Tea.
His report of Christmas 1915 is in contrast to the previous year’s report on the fine dinner experienced by some of the troops in the letter at the top of this article:
We are having a very hard time of it now in the trenches between rain, frost, snow and sleet it has us near Daed and that is not bad enough but when we lie down to get an hour’s sleep the Rats start to annoy us so that between them all including the Huns I need not tell you that we have a fine time of it.
Edward Mordaunt, Private 8723 of No. 6 Platoon, B Company, 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, wrote 36 letters in all to Monica’s sister. He wounded his right arm in France in 1916, and has an inch of bone removed, leaving him in considerable pain.
He writes from Sussex to say that he had not forgotten her kindness to him in France. It appears that he is still in recovering in early 1917 but is looking for a transfer to Dublin. He continues to undergo numerous operations, and by December 1917, when their correspondence ends, Edward is facing into the world without employment and little use of his right arm.
He has however moved to Portobello, Dublin, where he is living on Windsor Terrace with a wife that he refers to only as Mrs E. Mordaunt.
Well Dear Miss Roberts, I must now close wishing you a very happy Xmas and a bright and Prosperous New Year.
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The air corps operate PC-9 aircraft, not “PT-9 aircrafts”
@Y U no spell good?: plus it’s Corps – nor Corp
They were used quite extensively during World War 1 I’m led to believe. Of course that was before they became solar powered.
@Awkward Seal: But once moving , they can revert to wind power .
@Ken Hayden:
As long as they’re flying downwind…
Pathetic. Finland with a comparable economy and population size to ours have 54 x F18 Hornets super sonic jet fighters as their main Air Defence capability and are (like us non aligned). We have 7 (yes just 7) PC 9 piston engine basic training aircraft. As our main Air Defence capability.
@Mick Jordan: Finland’s Neighbour is a little less benign than Teresa May….
@Mick Jordan: If Ireland went off and bought a few jets Paul Murphy would have a field day. I’d rather defend our country with biscuit tins than listen to that muppet again.
@Mick Jordan: A. They have Russia (who has attacked them before) on their doorstep. B. Enlighten us on how you figure the PC9 has a piston engine?
@Mick Jordan: 54 hornets isn’t much of a deterrent to the Russian airforce, however I take your point, we don’t need an air core really.
@Mick Jordan: F18 Hornets have a unit price of $70.5 million new. How many do you want us to buy?
@Chemical Brothers: if your talking about ww2 your going to have to give Germany a mention , Russia’s the big bad wolf these days they didn’t help beat Germany , they didn’t battle the brown lads , there just commis , we have the uk on our doorstep who invaded us before , don’t bloody forget
@Mick Jordan: we dont have, and dont claim to have, an air defense capability. Having said that we do have sam sites on key buildings in main city centres. Take a close look at liberty hall in dublin next time you’re there
@Keith Fay: Sam sites in Dublin city centre ?? You’re talking through your tin foil hat.
@Mick Jordan: they’re turbine engines but I get your point
@An bhearna: i read it in an irish air corps book, pictures in there too
@Keith Fay: they may deploy portable air defence options when there is a significant security risk e.g. EU council meetings but there are no permanent air defence installations in Dublin city
@Mick Jordan: Take a look at the size of the Finnish Airspace, and compare it to Irish Airspace
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: My point is that a country with approx the same size population and similar size economy to ours can afford to have a decent sized military as well as a much higher standard of living for the ordinary populace than we do. We should learn from them how they manage it, because our lot most certainly can’t.
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: we have a much greater fiscal space, we can’t control that either
turboprops- jet engines with props on the end…not pistons to be fair
@Mick Jordan: So you’d like 54 multimillion jets lying idle in Baldonnell ? Just to satisfy your juvenile envy ? Finland is next to Russia in case you didn’t notice. And how do you think they can afford it. ? High taxes. But you’d be first to bitch about that too.
@Paul Mc Nulty: If the High taxes were being spent to give us a far superior standard of living then there would be very little bitching as you put it. But as it is we already have some of the highest Income tax rates in the EU and very little to show for them.
What’s in that stuff, will Goldfinger and his team raid the banks when we’re all out cold?
Are the Irish air corp cape able of shooting down a aircraft??
@Conor O’Neill: 2 x Rocket Pods – Holding x 2.75” (70mm) ‘FN LAU 7’ Folding Fin Aerial Rockets
2 x .5” FN HMG – Each gun with a 250 round belt
@Conor O’Neill: that can be done from the ground with a handheld device
@Conor O’Neill: only someone like batman is cape able.
@Conor O’Neill: Yeah they are but they’d have to try catch up with them first, which would never happen.
@Conor O’Neill: Yes they have the RAFs phone number
@Conor O’Neill: No. We don’t have an air force that would do that type of thing. We have and air corps attached to the army who’s primary role is flight training, transport and fishery protection. In the 70′s the US offered us free F4 phantoms and the means to take care of them, we said no unfortunately. We still have a fighter squadron that exists on paper that was very modern during ww2, at that time we operated hawker hurricanes and others i can’t remember but today …. no air force.
Imagine the hassle of trying to use the DART if you are a wheelchair user this weekend in Bray
Just travel while the air show is on, sounds as though you’d have the train to yourself. Not saying that any wheelchair user has an easy time of it in Ireland. I know they don’t. I’ve heard tourists getting upset and frustrated by the lack of promised facilities. People don’t want extra help, they want basic aids so they can get around by themselves. I wish wheelchair users could take that much for granted.
What time?
@Jason Kilroy: 11am, literally says it in the first paragraph.
@Mark L: Literally ?
@Boganity: literally
ˈlɪt(ə)rəli/
adverb
in a literal manner or sense; exactly.
“the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the roundabout”
synonyms: verbatim, word for word, line for line, letter for letter, to the letter.
informal
used for emphasis while not being literally true.
“I have received literally thousands of letters”
@Mark L: This was added later, I looked at the article first at about 6.45… Articles do get edited sometime..,
@Boganity: Numerically
@Lad: I literally read your comment
Typical. You wait all year for an air show and then two come along at the same time.
Sacred Heart – what next
If they call that ‘flying up the liffey’, I’m glad we’ve no plans to invade anyone at the moment
@Robert Gormley: How do they spare the petrol?
Was that it? Flew past with no real trail of smoke once! Are they coming back? That’s not really much of a treat now to be fair!
What a display of flying skill. If you blinked you missed it. A total joke. I ve seen more impressive flying displays in Stephen’s Green.
Time for an upgrade think a few f 35s are for sale on some deal
@P: Easily hacked as well costs 100 million each with a 50 million per jet to fix… So 150 million each then?
There’s some extremely amateur footage of it on my Twitter for anyone that missed it: https://twitter.com/RikMon23/status/887977997076238337
Hope it keeps fine for them, understand they are not too good in bad weather.
Total waste of taxpayers money, for a glorified ministerial air taxi service.
Scrap it & re- assign the funds to our navy, with heli pad vessels, & expanded fleet.
We already have to contract in our air emergency service, so what purpose does it serve?
No jets, they just call the RAF up for that lol.
have your say