Irish Guards

“ They are all most interesting. In every one of them he has something to say in praise of the Catholicity and valour of the Irish Guards. "We have to have Mass in a field," he writes in one letter, "the Irish Guards are nearly all Catholics, and we are at present the strongest battalion in the Guards' Brigade. The men then sing hymns at Mass, and it is fine to hear nearly a thousand men singing out in the open at the top of their voices. You have no idea what a splendid battalion the Irish Guards are! You have Sergeant Mike O'Leary, V.C., with you. ”

“ They lay still and watched, between bursts of shelling, a battalion on their left attacking some German trenches south of Gueudecourt. This happened once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Small stooping or crawling figures crept out for a while over the face of the landscape, drew the German guns, including those that were shelling the Irish trench, upon their advance, wavered forward into the smoke of it, spread out and disappeared—precisely as the watching Guards themselves had done the day before. The impression of unreality was as strong as in a cinema-show. ”

“ I wish to thank the Irish Guards for all they have done since they have been under my command. Before the war they had had no opportunity of proving themselves worthy to take their place in the Brigade of Guards. But during the course of this war they have always conducted themselves worthy of taking their place with the other illustrious Regiments of the Brigade of Guards—and more so. It is part of all of you young officers, who have taken the place of those who have fallen, to keep up the reputation of the Battalion, and you have a difficult task, [92] as its reputation is very high. ”

“ On the 21st October His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught visited them as senior Colonel of the Brigade of Guards, was introduced to all the officers, spoke to most of the N.C.O.’s and the men who had been decorated during the war. The Battalion was formed up in “walking out” order in the streets of the village to receive him. It is alleged by survivors that the sergeants saw to it that never since the Irish Guards had been formed was there such rigorous inspection of “walking out” men before they fell in. ”

“ At four the Second Irish Guards would advance upon Chalk-Pit Wood and would establish themselves on the north-east and south-east faces of it, supported by the 1st Coldstream. The 1st Scots Guards were to advance echeloned to the right rear of the Irish, and to attack Puits 14 bis moving round the south side of Chalk-Pit Wood, covered by heavy fire from the Irish out of the Wood itself. For this purpose, four machine-guns of the Brigade Machine-gun Company were to accompany the latter battalion. The 3rd Grenadiers were to support the 1st Scots in their attack on the Puits. ”

“ On the 25th, being still at Boisleux-St. Marc, the 1st Irish Guards were detailed to relieve “several different units,” but more specially the 1st Coldstream just east of Hamelincourt then practically in possession of the enemy. (One found out where the enemy were by seeing them come over the brows of unexpected slopes in small groups that thinned out and settled down to machine-gunning under cover of equally unexpected field-guns.) ”

“ The trouble for the 2nd Irish Guards companies developed almost at once on their left, where their patrol was fired at by machine-guns from a German trench on the edge of the wood. Their own 1st Battalion, trying to push out of Sailly-Saillisel, was hung up, too—they heard and saw it—for [129] the same reason. The Division could have driven through at the cost of fairly heavy casualties, but nothing was to be gained by wasting men in rushes on hidden machine-guns that can lay out thirty good lives in two minutes. ”

“ Thus, the one last chance that might have swung the whole war passed out of the enemy’s hands.
On that same day the 1st Irish Guards returned in lorries along the cramped and twisting roads by Bienvillers to Monchy, to relieve a battalion of the [272] Royal Scots in the front line at Ayette, three miles south down the line from Boiry. Ayette village had been recaptured on the 3rd April by the Thirty-second Division, and had removed a thorn in the side of troops in that sector. ”

“ The line of the advance of the Irish Guards was a hill upon which the Germans were strongly posted with several machine-guns, each pouring forth a terrible stream of 600 bullets a minute. Men were dropping on all sides. Then it was that the towering form of an Irish Guardsman was seen running well on in front of the first line flourishing the green flag, which he had tied round the barrel of his rifle, and shouting "Ireland for Ever." ”

“ They felt, one man averred, like amateur actors upon whom the curtain unexpectedly rises. The enemy, not looking for the attack, were only expending occasional shots, which emphasised the awful loneliness and exposure of it all, till, with a wrench that jerked the ground, our barrage opened, the enemy’s counter-barrage, replied, and through a haze of flying dirt No. 1 Company of the Irish saw a platoon of Coldstream in front of them crumped out of existence in one flash and roar. ”

“ The Irish Guards now disputed the ground with the most obstinate valor; every hedge and thicket became the scene of assault and defence; when they yielded a position to the overwhelming force of their assailants, it was but to renew the strife with still greater desperation at another; the nearer the enemy approached to the town the more deadly the conflict became ”

“ The Irish Guards and other Irish regiments have been known frequently to recite the Rosary and sing hymns even in the trenches. It is seen also in their national fervour. They go into action singing their patriotic songs. From these qualities they derive support for their martial spirit, their endurance and their unconquerable courage. They never quail in the face of danger. No soldiers have risen to loftier heights of moral heroism, as the numerous records of their deeds on the roll of the Victoria Cross bear inspiring witness. ”

“ Valentine’s Day, two days after the 4th Guards Brigade, which took with them the 2nd Irish Guards, had been formed under Lord Ardee, and added to the Thirty-first Division.
Three days in Arras prison saw them back again in support just in time to get the full benefit of another day’s thaw. It was a quiet tour. One man was killed by a trench-mortar, one badly wounded by a rifle-grenade, seven by shell-splinters outside a dug-out, and five men gassed. The enemy confined himself to long-range trench-mortars and an “increase in aerial activity.” ”

“ As a side-issue of the fight the Battalion on their left was attacked, which, so far as the Irish Guards were concerned, meant that the left company (No. 2) swiftly manufactured a fresh post on their left to improve communication with their neighbours, and prevent the enemy working round their flank through the remnants of a wood. In this work they had to disperse with rifle-fire several parties of the enemy who might have interfered with their arrangements, and Captain T. F. MacMahon was wounded. ”

“ The engine bolted down the line before it should be blown up, and when, on the stroke of ten, shelling ceased, Battalion Headquarters, Father Browne and the Doctor, Captain Woodhouse, and the Grenadiers’ Company stumbled as best they could along the sleepers towards Arras. Every one missed every one else in the confusion, while the Irish orderlies raged through the crowd like angry nurses, in search of their officers. ”

“ On the evening of the 18th September, in wet and cold weather, the Brigadier sent the Battalion a letter of praise and prophecy:
As your Brigadier I wish to express my feelings as to your most gallant work on the 15th September 1916 in the operations at Ginchy. The advance from the Orchard in the face of machine-gun fire is equal to anything you have yet accomplished in this campaign, and once more the 1st Battalion Irish Guards has carried out a most magnificent advance and held ground gained in spite of the most severe losses. ”

“ The idea of the day’s work for the 25th was less ambitious than on the 15th, and the objectives were visible German trenches, not imaginary lines on uniformly indistinguishable landscapes. Here is the Brigade-Major’s memorandum for the 1st Brigade on the lie of the land, issued on the 22nd September: They were to attack and carry the village of Lesbœufs, up the Ginchy-Lesbœufs road, about fifteen hundred yards, on a front, again, of five hundred yards; the Irish Guards leading the attack throughout on the left of the 1st Brigade, and the 2nd Grenadiers on the right. ”

“ It was late in the year, and the weather was no treat as the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards marched out in the wet from Houlle on the 10th November to Ecques, and, in billets there, made its first acquaintance with a battalion of Portuguese troops. Two days more brought them to Ostreville’s bad billets and a draft of a hundred new hands with Lieutenant M. R. Hely-Hutchinson and 2nd Lieutenant F. C. Lynch-Blosse. Not a man had fallen out on the road, but they were glad of a four days’ halt and clean-up, though that included instruction in outpost companies and positions. ”

“ They lost many men from the terrible artillery fire, but in spite of this they at once advanced in a most gallant attack which won several hundred yards of ground. The Irish and 2nd Grenadiers were the attacking battalions with the Herts territorials in close support. The Irish Guards were especially forward and held the ground gained, but lost 17 officers and several hundred men. All day of the 18th the Guards held the advanced front line until relieved at midnight of that date by the advance of another Division. ”

“ A village that has not been too totally wrecked is a convenient dump to draw up. The men “improved” their camp and floored their tents out of material at hand, and were rewarded by finding usable German stores among the ruins. One sees how their morale held up, in spite of dirt, iron-rust and foul weather, from the fact that they went out of their way to construct—even as they had done at Ypres—“a magnificent Irish Guards Star of glass and stones all surrounded by a low box-hedge.” ”

“ All would be soft, peaceful, and Arcadian, were it not for the helmets of the 3rd Dragoon Guards glittering in the sun as the patrol turns the corner of the wood, and the tall, dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary guarding the gate and doorstep. At present the house, the farm, and the neighbouring village are occupied by the police, and it has been thought necessary to increase the strength of the garrison in order to assure the safety of the servants who, to their infinite credit in such times as these, remain true to their master. ”

“ During the period the regiment lay at Carlow, the violent republicans of France, who had previously overturned the ancient form of government in that country, were guilty of the atrocious conduct of beheading their King and Queen, and of involving the kingdom in scenes of outrage, massacre, and devastation. These proceedings were followed by a war between Great Britain and the regicide Government of France; and the establishment of the Royal Irish Dragoon Guards was augmented in August, 1793, to 334 non-commissioned officers and privates, and 276 troop horses. ”

“ He tells us of the green flag that Corporal Cunningham bought from a pedlar in London, and that the Irish Guards have since followed to the gates of death on a score of fields; of the Irish Rifles rallying to the 'view-hallo' that Lieutenant Graham gave them on a French newsboy's horn; of the glorious sacrifices of the Dublins and the Munsters at the Gallipoli landings ”

“ When the Battalion took over from the 4th Grenadiers (they could relieve all but two of the posts in daylight, thanks to the formation of the ground) Brigade Headquarters in its turn wanted samples from the German lines where had been recent reliefs. Nos. 1 and 2 Companies of the Battalion accordingly sent patrols unavailingly into No Man’s Land to see [186] if they could catch any one. By the sheer luck of the Irish, an enemy deserter in full uniform must needs come and give himself up to our line in the afternoon. ”

“ The detachment having been relieved from the King's duty in London, the regiment was removed in February, 1690, into quarters at Oxford and Abingdon. In the following month it received orders to embark for Ireland, to serve under King William, against the French and the Irish Roman Catholics under King James. This order was, however, countermanded, and when the King proceeded with three troops of Life Guards to Ireland, this regiment marched into quarters in the villages near London, in order to take part in the duties of the Court. ”

“ Those who have full right to speak affirm that, in absolutely impossible situations, the Irish could be trusted to “play up” beyond even a cockney battalion. The matter will always be in dispute, but none know better than the men who saw the Push through how superbly the mud-caked, wire-drawn platoons bore themselves.
On the 30th March the attack rolled up again from the south where it had met no particular encouragement, and barraged the Battalion’s sector with heavies for a couple of hours; causing forty-two casualties among the men and wounding Lieutenants Stacpoole and Bagenal. ”

“ In spite of heavy shell-fire at night he brought up the rations to Battalion Headquarters in the second objective, and remained there until his duty was finished. He has never failed to supply his battalion with rations in most dangerous situations.”
6th April 1918. M.C. to Second Lieutenant Eric Edwin Anderson, Irish Guards, Special Reserve: “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in command of his platoon. He attacked a machine-gun position, capturing the two guns, and killed all the garrison. He was responsible for capturing two more machine-guns at the first objective. ”