A Medal’s Tale

Oonagh Finan with her father Jim and her children presenting 

the medal to Michael Leydon

It is Armistice Day tomorrow and with the year being 2011 the end of the Great War will be commemorated with two minutes silence 93 years after the guns fell silent at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in the 11th year – a lot of elevens. I want to share with you one of those remarkably circular stories about an 8 year old girl who found a First World War medal in woods in Ireland. That girl has now advanced a few years, is married to a colleague of mine and with their two children recently travelled to Ireland to return the medal to the grandson of the holder only to find that he and her grandfather worked together!

Connaught Rangers crest and crosses at the Field
of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey. London, 11/11/2011

James Gray in the Sligo Champion carried the report on the World War 1 medal belonging to a Sligo man who served with the Connaught Rangers, which had been lost for generations being returned to his family. In a remarkable twist of fate, the woman who found the medal as an eight-year-old girl in Lissadell Woods used the internet to track down the family and last week she travelled from England to return it to them. The silver medal was awarded to Patrick Leydon sometime between 1915 and 1917, the years he served in the Connaught Rangers. He was discharged in 1917 after a gunshot wound in a battle in the North of France necessitated the amputation of his left leg.

Private Patrick Leydon's WW1 service
medal - "George V, King of all the Britons
and Emperor of India"

The surgery was carried out in a field hospital somewhere in France and Patrick returned home to work as a gate-keeper at Oxfield House next to Lissadell which was also owned by the Gore-Booth family. It's thought that it was while working in Lissadell Woods he must have somehow lost the war medal. Patrick died in 1962 aged 75 years. Fast-forward to 1981 and eight year-old Oonagh Finan, visiting her Sligo relations with her father Jim is playing in Lissadell Woods when she stumbles across the mud-covered medal.

Pte. Patrick W. Leydon standing

"It was the size of an old half-crown and was completely covered in mud and leaves. I really don't know how I managed to spot it, but as a young girl it was like finding a piece of treasure. I took it home and cleaned it up, and I suppose I knew it was a valuable war medal. It had numbers and inscriptions very clearly marked on it," Oonagh recalls.

Initially, the young girl kept her prized medal on her dressing table, but as the years went by it was put into a shoebox at the back of a closet. Then, about five years ago, Oonagh thought it was time the medal she had cherished since childhood should be returned to its rightful owners, so she had it restored to gleaming condition and posted the details on the internet.



Unknown to her, Patrick Leydon's grandson Michael and Michael's son Gavin had for years been researching Patrick's life, particularly the two years he spent in the Connaught Rangers. They had no idea he had been presented with the medal in Oonagh's possession. The story of the medal had a happy ending recently when Oonagh travelled from England and met up with members of the Leydon family to hand over the medal.


“The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.”

From William Butler Yeats' - In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz

"It's an amazing story," beamed Michael Leydon, who lives in Swanlinbar, Co. Cavan. "My grandfather died when I was only 13, but I had been very close to him. I spent all my summers in Maugherow in Sligo and I remember him regaling us with stories of the war years. But we never knew about this medal. To have it back in the family after all these years is remarkable. We're absolutely thrilled."

For background on the Gore-Booth’s of Lissadell see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/10/first-female-member-of-parliament.html

Another remarkable twist to this fascinating story is that Oonagh Finan's grandfather, Paddy Gilmartin served his time as an apprentice carpenter at the Lissadell Estate around the same time as Patrick Leydon worked there, so it is practically certain the two men were friends.

Connaught Rangers, 1820

In tribute to the medal and its history Oonagh’s father Jim penned this fine piece on the Medal’s Tale.

A MEDAL’S TALE

First of all, let me explain who/what I am. I’m a medal given to a veteran of a war. On one side I bear a bust of King George V and some Latin words that I cannot understand. On the other side there is a picture of a man with a sword in his hand riding a horse with. There were two sets of numbers , 1914 and 1918.

I’m a Connaught Rangers medal. I know this because along my rim there is a name and a number (4662). I was given to a soldier after the First World War. At least, that was what it was called much later when the world had to go through it all again and they had to distinguish between the two world wars. At the time we only knew it as the “Great War” or, as the optimists used to say, The War to End All Wars. What a bunch of hoping for- the- best idiots they turned out to be!

The Connaught Rangers were part of the great army that was sent to France in 1914 with a mission to defeat the Hun and rescue small nations (like Belgium). They saw action up and down the front for the whole of the war, a war that went on for more than four of the most horrible, murderous years that the world had ever seen. Yet in the middle of it all there were examples of human kindness and bravery which made you understand that humans had some redeeming features when they were not being ordered to kill other human beings.

Obviously, I learnt much of this later as I was not actually made until after it all finished. I am about the size of a half crown (for those of you who can remember what that was). I know this because there was many a time I shared a pocket with those lovely coins. A man could have a good night out for a half crown and have change for a cure the next day.

I was given to Pte. Patrick W. Leydon, no. 4662. He brought me home to Maugharow and Lissadell in far off Sligo. Unfortunately, he had to leave something far more important behind in France, his left leg! It seemed that he got hit by shrapnel from a field gun and they couldn’t save the limb. Still, bearing in mind the very large number of his regiment that he had to leave behind and would never get home it seemed to him to have been a small enough price to pay.

A group of officers of the 5th Battalion,
Connaught Rangers, 1915

I learned all of this, and much, much more from Private Leydon in the years after the war. Now, I do not want to give you the impression the private spoke directly to me. That would have been a bad sign. He did not talk much about what he had seen in France except when he was with other returned soldiers . When he did I was usually there on the mantelpiece or in his waistcoat pocket. He took to carrying me about with him more and more as the years went by.

The hospital fixed the private up with an artificial leg which was really a carved stump of wood. He eventually got used to it and even though he had an unusual gait he was able to get on with his life. The Gore-Booths were an Anglo Irish family with a big house in Lissadell. They had a large farm and forest and they were just the sort of people who would try to help out returned heroes so they gave ex-Private Leydon a job on the estate. From now on he would be referred to as Pat or Mr. Leydon.

Lissadell Woods

Life was pretty ordinary after that. The bosses were benign and only looked for a decent days work for a, relatively speaking, decent pay. Well, they WERE the only employers in the whole parish. Pat had various duties, depending on the time of the year but he was mostly put in charge of thinning out the woods and harvesting timber. He also had to make sure that there was a constant supply of wood for the stoves and huge fireplaces in the big house.

Years passed and the only thing of note was the arrival of a wife and, in pretty quick succession, four youngsters. They lived quietly but well in a place called Oxfield House. The boys, especially, would hold me reverently and beg their father to tell them stories about the war. But Pat never spoke of the war in front of his children. All he would say was “say your prayers that it never happens again and that you and your children will never see the like of what I saw and have to do the things that I had to do” There were other workers on the estate and one of these was a young apprentice. It was inevitable that Pat got to know the young man quite well given that the workforce was only a couple of dozen hands. Paddy Gilmartin came from nearby Doonowney and he went in to the Gore-Booths do his carpentry apprenticeship at the age of sixteen. There was nothing remarkable about that but you will have to wait until later in my story to see why I mentioned it at all.



One day Pat was in the forest cutting up a fallen tree for firewood. I was in his waist- coat pocket for by this time he had taken to carrying me about nearly all of the time. It was warm work and he took off the waist-coat and left it over a log. At quitting time he lifted the jacket but he did not see me slip out and into the grass. I, being only a medal, could not cry out to warn him and he walked off down the path and home. It was the last I ever saw of him but I would like to believe that he missed me and searched for me.

So there I lay, unseen and lost for so many years that I lost count. The seasons came and went. I often saw people pass me by on the path as I lay only inches from their feet. I could not cry out for attention and I slowly lost my sheen until I was a dull brown, almost indistinguishable from the clay in which I lay. Over the years I noticed that people became different. Their clothes changed and they just seemed to change into a different race than I had been used to. They seemed happier and more confident.

Lissadell House

Then one summer’s day I saw a small group walking along the path. Two parents and three young girls. One of them, the eldest, I think, spotted me and picked me up. She showed me to her daddy and he said she should bring me home and clean me up so that they could get a better look at it. I believe that over fifty years had passed since I had been held by a human hand again. The girl was Oonagh and I was taken home by her. She did a bit of a cleaning job on me and her father explained that I was a First World War Service medal. There it was! The First World War! Did that mean that while I was lying beside that forest path that they had to go through it all again? It was obvious that there had been a Second World War? Had there been more than two? I did not know the answers but I would get to know in due course. There was a Second World War and numerous other wars. Did humans never learn?

1901 Connaught Rangers Boer
War campaign medal

The girl kept me on her dressing table for a time then in what I found out was a Spring Cleaning I was thrown into a shoe-box with lots of other knick knacks. The box ended up in the back of a closet which was even worse than being on the forest path. Here there were no seasons, no day. No night, only darkness.

Later I was to find out that I had been in that closet for 30 years before I was taken out again. Oonagh’s father found me again and handed me on to my finder who had changed from being a young girl to a grown woman with children of her own. She showed me to her children and gave them the bits of my story that she knew. Now she got me properly cleaned until I gleamed just like I had when I was first given to Pte. Leydon. The only thing missing was the cloth ribbon which had rotted away in the wood.

I was intrigued that, over nearly 85 years, generations had come and gone yet here was I, just as good as the day I left the mint.

"The Devil's Own" 88th Regiment at the
Siege of Badajoz, Spain 1812

The next part of my story is easier to tell. Oonagh made contact with a man who told her that he was the grandson of Patrick Leydon. Remember when I told you earlier about a young man who came to Lissadell House Farm to do his carpentry apprenticeship? Believe it or not, that young man who went to live in Dublin and who raised his family there eventually became the grandfather of Oonagh who found me in the woods. So there was no doubt that the two men knew each other. And remember when I mentioned that Pat Leydon went to live in Oxfield House. Well, when Oonagh’s Aunt Susan (daughter of the carpenter) went to live in Sligo she went to live on that very same Oxfield House.

My story is nearly done. I’m soon to be handed over to Michael Leydon, grandson of my original owner, Private Patrick W Leydon, late of the Connaught Rangers. I expect that I will be placed in a position of honour in the house and so long as I do not end up in another dark closet for more generations I will be happy.

Jim Finan – October 2011 ©

The Connaught Rangers ("the Devil's Own") was an Irish regiment of the British Army, formed by the amalgamation in 1881 of the 88th Regiment of Foot (Connaught Rangers) and the 94th Regiment of Foot. Their nickname came from the Peninsular Wars in Portugal & Spain against Napoleon where they gained a reputation as the toughest infantry troops in the British Army. The Regiment based at Renmore Barracks in Galway was disbanded in 1922.

To Pretoria today, sez she
And the gap of danger, sez she
There's a Connaught Ranger, sez she
And a fusilier not far, sez she

Percy French "sez she" 1900

I’ve explored elsewhere the cataclysmic effect World War 1 had on the divisions in Ireland.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/towards-somme-personal-journey.html

For the Connaught Rangers the aftermath of WW1 was to be particularly poignant with a mutiny in India against the campaign of the British Army in Ireland which resulted in the last execution for Mutiny carried out in the British Army.

Connaught Rangers, Ferozepore, Punjab, India

On 28 June 1920, five men from C Company of the 1st Battalion at Wellington Barracks, Jalandhar, Punjab decided to protest against the effects of Martial law in Ireland by refusing to soldier. They were soon joined in their protest by other Rangers (the protesters were not all Irishmen and included at least one Englishman) declaring that they would not return to duty until British forces left Ireland.

Led by Private James Daly (whose brother William took part in the protest at Jalandhar), the protest spread to the Connaught Ranger company at Solon; the Connaught Ranger company at Jutogh hill-station remained loyal to Britain. A party of men led by Daly made an attempt to recover their arms, storming the armoury. The loyal guard successfully defended it, and two of Daly's party, Privates Patrick Smythe and Peter Sears, were killed in the firefight.



Within days, both garrisons were occupied by loyal troops; Daly and his followers surrendered and were taken prisoner. Eighty-eight mutineers were court martialed: nineteen men were sentenced to death (eighteen later had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment), 59 were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, and ten were acquitted. The 21-year-old Daly was shot by a firing squad in Dagshai Prison on 2 November 1920. He was the last member of the British Armed Forces to be executed for mutiny. Pte Sears and Pte Smyth were buried at Solan, while Daly and John Miranda (an Englishman who later died in prison) were buried at the Dagshai graveyard until 1970.

In 1970, the remains of Sears, Smyth and Daly were repatriated to Ireland by The National Graves Association and given a military funeral with full honours. A special monument in their honour was erected at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. In 1966 a stained glass memorial window to the Connaught Rangers was included in the new Galway Cathedral, which renders honour to a regiment so long associated with that part of Ireland.

Who knew when a young girl went down to the woods in Lissadell with her family in 1981 that she would unearth so much of our poignant history?

Connaught Rangers Memorial, Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin