War memorial erected to Ballina’s World War I dead

Memorial erected to Ballina’s World War I dead


A new monument remembering the 182 Ballina men who died in World War I has been erected in the north Mayo capital

Anton McNulty

TWO days after the outbreak of World War I, Ballina man Stephen Kennedy died from injuries in a hospital in the French village of Athis Mons, located 16 kilometres south of Paris. Over four years later in February 1919, Captain William Marsh of Lower Bridge Street, Ballina, was on his way home from the front on extended leave when he contracted influenza and died in his parents’ home of pneumonia.
The deaths of the two Ballina men gave the north Mayo town the unenviable distinction of being the home of the first and last Irishmen to die in World War I.
In the intervening years, 182 Ballina men fell during the horrors of World War I, and to ensure their memory survives into the future, a war memorial featuring their names has been newly-erected at Green Park, opposite the entrance to Leigue cemetery on the Killala Road.
The simple marble monument features the names of all the Ballina men who died during the conflict along with the area of the town they were from. Local historian, PJ Clarke, was the driving force behind the memorial after feeling the memory of the men from the Ballina region should be remembered in their home town.
“I came up with the idea because I felt Ballina needed to remember all the lads who had fallen. If you look at towns and villages in England they all have memorials to their dead and there is hardly any memorial here. I thought a memorial to the men who died was needed for Ballina,” he explained.

Family men
As a historian, PJ has been researching stories regarding Ballina from the archives of the local papers when he came across the names of people who were fighting in World War I. His interest in the era grew as he came across the stories in the newspaper and started to collect the names of all the men who died in the war.
Hundreds of Mayo men, he said, signed up to join the British army at the outbreak of the war with the vast majority joining the Connaught Rangers regiment. Many, he explained, were not wet around the ears youngsters eager for adventure, but men with families who found it hard to get regular work in Ballina.
“An awful lot of the lads were in the Foresters Club and had taken part in the Boer War and were reservists. When war was declared it was not all kids who went to war, a lot of the men were grown up in their thirties and married with children to support. There was an awful lot of unemployment and most of the men were employed in manual labour. They would work a day on and off and had to scrape a living. That is why a lot who signed up were men with families,” he explained.
The first Irishman to die in the war, Stephen Kennedy from Ardoughan, Ballina, was aged 35 years when he was killed and was one of three brothers who fought and died in the war. His brother John, aged 32, was killed in action on March 21, 1918 and his brother William, was killed in action on January 21, 1916.
One Ballina man to die in the early period of the war was James Moyles, a great-grandfather of BBC DJ, Chris Moyles, which featured in the television show, ‘Who do you think you are?’ PJ explained that James, of Shambles Street, now Barrett Street, was 44 years-old and married with children when he enlisted and ‘had hardly landed’ when he was killed.
PJ added that he discovered a number of sad stories from the war and a number of brothers who had been killed. He also discovered the story of John Flynn, who while fighting against Bulgarian forces in the Balkans, was shot in the face and had his tongue severed in half. He survived and his tongue was sown together by a Bulgarian surgeon and he lived until 1949.

Enlisting
Even as the war continued and after the 1916 Rising, PJ said Ballina men continued to enlist in numbers to join the British army.
“Men continued to enlist all the time, even though lads were coming back with horrific wounds and suffering from the effects of gassing. They were joining up all the time. The lads who went to war really did dislike the people who signed up in 1916. Lads from Ballina continued to join up after 1916 and in ‘17 and ’18 because 1916 should never have taken place.”
With the help of other local historians and local politicians, they won the support of Mayo County Council who provided additional funding and a suitable place to erect the monument. It was designed by Ballina-based Mayo County Council architect, Kevin Keegan, and was erected by Ginty Headstones and Monumental Sculptors in Ballina.
An official unveiling ceremony is planned for July this year, and PJ hopes it will be a reminder to the people of Ballina to the people who went before them.
“It is hoped to unveil the monument in early July to give descendants a chance to come to Ballina to view the names of their relatives. It was the least we could do for them.”