A School in Conflict - Remembering Belvedere's past pupils killed in the conflicts of the 20th Century.
But in 1916, Joseph Plunkett's mind was on revolution, despite appalling health. He was based at the GPO in Sackville Strret (now O'Connell Street), but others took up arms at different points around the city. In the afternoon of Easter Monday, a group of volunteer soldiers from the British army left their barracks at Beggar's Bush in south Dublin on their weekly practice march. They were near Mount Street Bridge. Rebels in number 25 Northumberland Road fired and killed 10 of the volunteers. One of these was Private Reginald Clery, a twenty-two year old unarmed volunteer who was also a past pupil of Belvedere. On the wall of 25 Northumberland Road is a plaque to Michael Malone, one of the rebels who died here the next day. But there is no plaque to the Belvedere boy Reg Clery or his colleagues, who also died just doing volunteer work. By Friday, the Rising was crushed. Sackville Street was in ruins. The rebels surrendered and their leaders were court-martialed. Some Belvedere students who had been caught up accidentally in the war zone were able to return home to their anxious families. There were rumours that Belvedere had been burned down, but in fact the only damage was a broken window. The school re-opened a week late after an extended Easter holiday. Like other leaders of the Rising, Joseph Plunkett was executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Jail a few weeks later. On May 3rd, the day before he was executed, he married his fiancee, the artist Grace Gifford. The school mourned the death of both of its past pupils who had died in the 'April Rebellion', and regretted the injuries to many others on both sides. Meanwhile, in Europe and beyond, a world war was well into its second year. At this stage, over 150 Belvederians were engaged in the conflict, alongside over 200 000 Irish citizens. They joined up for three main reasons: some sought adventure: as children, they had wanted to be soldiers or pilots or sailors, some needed the job at a time of extreme poverty in Ireland, others responded to the call from churchmen and politicians to defend the rights of small nations when Germany attacked Belgium. As Tom Kettle wrote in a poem to his daughter, they fought 'not for king or country but for the simple gospel of the poor'. Many of those who took part believed that if they helped out Britain in her hour of need, that the British would look more favourably on the Irish after the war was over. By joining the British forces, they felt they were helping the causes of Home Rule and Ireland's independence. Over fifty Belvederians lost their lives in the first world war. One was Lieutenant William McGarry, of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He fought in Turkey, at Suvla Bay in the Dardanelles, Gallipoli. During the battle he bandaged and saved a fellow north-sider from Dublin. But after that he was never seen again. He was, like so many fighters in the great war, commemorated without a proper burial. He was only 20 when he disappeared. Another was Surgeon Raymond O'Connell Redmond who was lost at sea in the Atlantic when HMS Clan MacNaughton went down with all hands. He was only 21. Others like Flight Lieutenant Paddy Cunningham joined the air corps. While at Belvedere he was a keen rugby player and represented the school when they won the Junior Cup for the first time in 1913. He represented Leinster in both rugby and cricket. In the last weeks of the war, the plane which he was flying was damaged by enemy fire over France. He was wounded and his 'gunner' killed. He managed to return to base, but crashed upon landing and was killed. His family have donated his military insignia to The Belvedere Museum. Chemical weapons were used in this war. James McLoughlin died of poisonous gas and Matthew Brady died in Dublin of pneumonia, as a result of a gas attack earlier in France. Many Jesuits went to the war zone as chaplains, among them Father Frank Browne who took these photographs of his experiences. Two Belvedere priests lost their lives in the war. The first was Fr John Gwynn, who died from wounds received when the house (near Bethune in France) in which he was having a meal was shelled. The other teacher to die was Father Willie Doyle who was killed when working as chaplain to the Dublin Fusiliers in Belgium on the 17th of August 1917. He is buried here at Tyncot in Belgium. Most of those who died were not professional soldiers. For example Herbert Tierney was a barrister who joined up when the war broke out. He was reported 'missing' in April 1916 aged 26. His loss is recorded at Basra in Iraq, alongside over 40 000 other Commonwealth soldiers who lost their lives there, thousands of miles from home. After the war, Britain (under pressure from the Unionists in Ulster, was slow to give Ireland its promised Home Rule. A war of attrition was fought throughout the country in which members of the British Army or the police force were assassinated and barracks were attacked. In reply, the British attacked homes and businesses in acts of reprisal. Belvedere played its role in the revival of Irish nationalism. In 1919, the first Cathaoirleach of the new Dail was Charles Burgess, who had been a student in Belvedere in the 1890s. Such was his love for the Irish language that he had changed his name to Cathal Brugha. He held the job until a former Maths teacher at Belvedere by the name of Eamon de Valera escaped from prison in England, after serving time for his part in the 1916 rising. Brugha then handed over to Dev. Hurling was introduced into Belvedere. This picture shows the Belvedere College hurling team of 1917. It includes Eugene Davy , who later played rugby for Ireland. It also includes a young man by the name of Kevin Barry. Kevin Barry joined the IRA while still at Belvedere. His science notebook, which can be seen in the Belvedere Museum, is signed Kevin G Barry IRA. Kevin Barry did well at school and won a scholarship to study medicine in the National University (now UCD). His social life and his pre-occupation with the cause of Irish freedom, led to his failing first med. On September 1920 he was to sit his repeat exams in the afternoon. In the morning he took part in an ambush of a British army lorry in which three British soldiers were killed. Barry was arrested at the scene, court-martialed and sentenced to die by hanging on November the first, 1920. On the eve of the execution date, Fr Frank Browne cycled from Belvedere to the Phoenix Park to ask the viceroy Ffrench to commute the sentence. He was turned down. The following day, a crowd gathered outside Mountjoy jail. A single bell rang out to signal that Kevin Barry had been hanged. He was only 18. His death had a huge effect on people - it made many more Irish women and men sympathetic to the cause. In 1922, Britain offered to sign a Treaty which would allow the establishment of an Irish Free State - although only 26 of the 32 counties on the island were to be part of it. A civil war broke out between those who favoured the Treaty and those who opposed it. De Valera and Cathal Brugha were on the anti-Treaty side. In July 1922, Cathal Brugha along with 12 others were besieged by pro-Treaty forces at the Granville Hotel, just a few hundred yards from Belvedere. They escaped by a back door, but Brugha took his gun in hand and turned towards his attackers. He was shot, removed to the Mater Hospital where he died on July 17th 1922. The street in which he fell is now called Cathal Brugha Street in his honour. Staff-Captain Fred Lidwell was a qualified solicitor who had been to school at Belvedere. When the civil war broke out he joined the pro-treaty forces. He lost his life in December 1922 in a shooting accident at the barracks in Kilkenny. Eventually the pro-Treaty side prevailed and the Free State found its feet. De Valera later became Taoiseach (or Prime Minister) and later President of the Republic of Ireland. When the second world war broke out in 1939, Ireland remained neutral in the conflict. Nonetheless, many thousands of Irishmen fought for the allies against Germany. Some had been to school at Belvedere. At least a dozen of these lost their lives. Many were members of the RAF, like David Devoto who died in France, Tommy Gray who lost his life in the skies over Singapore and Andrew Clinch who was killed in action in Malta on the 24th of March 1942, aged 39, having earlier been awarded a War Cross in Norway. Commander Frank Stenson was killed as captain of a boat torpedoed on its way from India to England in 1940. Patrick Quinn and Kevin Teehan were killed in the successful allied campaigns of North Africa. Vin Coyle died as a citizen, living and working in Berlin when the allies bombed the city in 1944. Two teachers died: one was Gerald Long who was killed in an air raid in Malta. The other was Fr John Hayes SJ, who died of typhus while working as a chaplain in Burma in 1945. Altogether there were 41 Irish Jesuits who worked as chaplains in this war. Among them was Fr Michael Morrison, who was with the 88th battalion when they liberated the concentration camp at Berger-Belsen in Germany, as Hitler's armies gave way. When they arrived, there were about 50,000 inmates alive. Most of these were Jews, but at least one third were Catholics who were there because of their political beliefs. The conditions in the camp were appalling, with over 500 people dying each day, from starvation or typhus. Many of the dead lay unburied in heaps. Morrison did what he could, attending to the sick, saying mass for the first time in the camp and anointing the dying and the dead. When he returned to Ireland, he brought with him these photographs, but he never liked to talk about his experiences at Belsen. In fact, he suffered from his nerves all the rest of his life until he died at Belvedere on April the 7th 1973. Despite the appalling sufferings of the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis, Ireland missed an opportunity to lend them a helping hand at their time of greatest need. While Britain took in over 50 000 refugees, Ireland would allow in less than 100. Furthermore, there was a rise in anti-Semitism in Ireland after the war. Even this poster for a debate in Belvedere during the war shows a lack of respect for Jewish people. Even now Jewish people in Ireland find it hard to join certain sporting clubs. It is a part of our history which Irishmen and women can not be proud of. The lives of many Belvederians (like Michael Morrison) were changed forever by what they witnessed or suffered in the conflicts of the 20th century. At least sixty-eight of our pupils and teachers gave their lives. And they died on both sides. There was James Plunkett and Reginald Clery in the 1916 rising, Cathal Brugha and Fred Lidwell in the Civil War, David deVoto and Vin Coyle in World War II. Please. Don't just remember the famous ones or the ones who side you favour now. Remember all of them. Anyone seeking information should contact Oliver Murphy at Belvedere or Garry O'Sullivan in the Jesuit Communications Centre on (01)6471022
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