Frederick Forsyth and execution of Pearse.

snafuk35

I just finished reading a book of ten suspense stories called No Comebacks by the British thriller writer Frederick Forsyth.

One of the stories is called Duty is told from the perspective of the unnamed husband of Bernadette, a niece of Patrick Pearse who experience a breakdown of their car in rural France in the 1950s. Forsyth claims the story is true and was told to him by a friend.

They are put up in the farmhouse of a kind old woman and her huge immensely strong but simple minded husband. The farmer turns out to be Welsh and after he wounded in the second battle of the Marne in 1917 he married a French nurse and took over the farm when her parent died. His name is given as Evan Price from the Rhonda of Wales in 1897, joined a Welsh regiment at the age of 17 in 1914 and served two years on garrison duty in Ireland at Islandbridge, Dublin before being sent to France.

The husband talks to the slow witted man and drags the information out of him when Price tells him he executed a man but he can't remember who is name was.

In the morning the car is fixed and they are preparing to leave when the old farmer comes running up to them and tells them that he remembers who he killed and his name is Pearse. Bernadette and her husband drive away in shock.

So I am just wondering if this story is REALLY true and whether Pearse did indeed have a niece called Bernadette and what is the identity of the husband? Did Price really exist and did he really live in the Dordogne region of France?

Peregrinus

I don't think Patrick Pearse could have had a neice called "Bernadette". His only full sibling was Willie, who died childless. He had two half-siblings, Emily and James, by his father's first marriage, but they weren't Catholic and didn't live in Ireland, so they are unlikely parents for an Irishwoman called Bernadette.

ejmaztec

Frederick Forsyth was obviously inspired to knock out a bit of tongue-in-cheek Irish themed fiction, during his stay in Ireland years ago.

who the fug

ejmaztec wrote: »

Frederick Forsyth was obviously inspired to knock out a bit of tongue-in-cheek Irish themed fiction, during his stay in Ireland years ago.

His inspired tax break stay in Ireland you mean, which like Simple Minds and Them Sheffield lads complete fecked up his future artistic career

ejmaztec

who the fug wrote: »

His inspired tax break stay in Ireland you mean, which like Simple Minds and Them Sheffield lads complete fecked up his future artistic career

It was the scenery.





:pac:

CDfm

According to census records as at 1901 Pearse had 6 nieces whose parents were his half brother James Vincent and his half sister Emily McGloughlin. So there were at least 6 nieces.

So Forsyth did get the niece part right.

And contrary to what Peregrinus says my understanding is that Emily lived in Ireland and James Vincent is buried in Glasnevin.

So that part of the story is possible.

Forsyth is a former reuters journalist .He is well known for his methodical research and draws heavily on factual sources.

So was there a Bernadette ?

Of James 4 daughters listed in the 1901 census, it appears not.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/North_Dock/Spencer_Street/1277145/

Of Emily's children

One was named Margaret and the other Emily

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73101825&postcount=188

So "Bernadette" seems unlikely.

snafuk35

CDfm wrote: »

According to census records as at 1901 Pearse had 6 nieces whose parents were his half brother James Vincent and his half sister Emily McGloughlin. So there were at least 6 nieces.

So Forsyth did get the niece part right.

And contrary to what Peregrinus says my understanding is that Emily lived in Ireland and James Vincent is buried in Glasnevin.

So that part of the story is possible.

Forsyth is a former reuters journalist .He is well known for his methodical research and draws heavily on factual sources.

So was there a Bernadette ?

Of James 4 daughters listed in the 1901 census, it appears not.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/North_Dock/Spencer_Street/1277145/

Of Emily's children

One was named Margaret and the other Emily

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73101825&postcount=188

So "Bernadette" seems unlikely.

I wonder is there any way of finding out from what unit the men who took part in the firing squads came from and who they shot (presumably the same men did not shoot all the rebel leaders) and who they were and where they came from? They were just doing their duty. It would be very interesting.

CDfm

snafuk35 wrote: »

I wonder is there any way of finding out from what unit the men who took part in the firing squads came from and who they shot (presumably the same men did not shoot all the rebel leaders) and who they were and where they came from? They were just doing their duty. It would be very interesting.

I think that is fairly well known and the Sherwood Foresters are often mentioned.

I don't know how accurate this link is

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=154652

Edit

The inquest reports are in the National Achieve in Kew, I don't know if they available online, I went to Kew and read them there in 2002 and am working from notes I made when there. The only soldier named was Major H Heatcote, he was named in relation to the executions of Clarke, MacDonagh and Pearse, although blindfolds had been provided no cloth targets for pinning to the person being executed were provided, the report in which Heatcote was mentioned was confusing as it was not clear if he was in charge of the firing squad or just making out the report regarding the targets, the second page of the report stated that no action would be taken so there was no further information.



Sandbach was commander of the British Troops in Dublin so I doubt very much if he attended ant of the executions. The 59th 2nd North Midland Division are listed on the web-page link in my last post, what components I could find of this Division

ejmaztec

CDfm wrote: »

I think that is fairly well known and the Sherwood Foresters are often mentioned.

I don't know how accurate this link is

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=154652

Edit

I understand that official information covering the years around the time of the Easter Rising and War of Independence is still kept from the public domain by the UK government, and like a lot of other very sensitive info, wasn't covered by the 30 year limit. It's quite likely that the names of those in the firing squads are still closely guarded secrets, as I assume that they wanted to protect the soldiers' families and descendants from any retaliation.

CDfm

I think it is a good yarn though I think it is unlikely to be true. Were records even kept of the members of firing squads ?

That the Pearse Brothers had nieces is news to many and Ruth Dudley Edwards , who wrote a Patrick Pearse biography seems unaware of them. So the story has a grain of truth in it.

France even has a truthiness about it with lots of Irish writers such as Yeats (& his entourage) , Joyce & Beckett spending time there.

And, Forsyth's curiosity may have gotten the better of him and he may have tried to find out or put a profile together of a firing squad member.

ejmaztec

It's probably as true as the yarns told by WW1 soldiers, who just happened to avoid killing Hitler in the trenches, or the yarns about Charles 1st hiding from the roundheads in an oak tree. The latter must have hopped from one oak-tree to another, because he must have hidden in hundreds of them.

CDfm

ejmaztec wrote: »

It's probably as true as the yarns told by WW1 soldiers, who just happened to avoid killing Hitler in the trenches,

Thank god for that, for a moment I thought you were going to say that Bridget Dowling didn't give Adolf the makeover that gave him his famous trademark Charlie Chaplin moustache.

ejmaztec

CDfm wrote: »

Thank god for that, for a moment I thought you were going to say that Bridget Dowling didn't give Adolf the makeover that gave him his famous trademark Charlie Chaplin moustache.

Is she the one who years later said that she almost cut his throat with a razor?

CDfm

ejmaztec wrote: »

Is she the one who years later said that she almost cut his throat with a razor?

She may have as she did speaking tours in the US.

http://www.dowlingfamily.info/i1910hit.htm

There is a thread somewhere on the forum if you search for William Patrick Hitler.

I came across an article on the Sherwood Foresters in Dublin here

The Sherwood Foresters
In some forgotten corner of a foreign field

For a dead English soldier it really doesn't matter whether the foreign field in which you finally rest is in Flanders or in Dublin. At least it shouldn't. But scattered across Dublin cemeteries lie the forgotten remains of the young men of the Sherwood Foresters Regiment who were slaughtered on Dublin's Streets during the 1916 Easter Rising. Their story, like their scruffy and neglected graves, remains largely forgotten in the long and embarrassed history of the English in Ireland.
They were volunteers, recruited from the towns and villages of Nottinghamshire. From Newark and Bingham from Huthwaite and Hucknall, Robin Hood county, the English folk hero from which the regiment took it's name. They had responded to Kitchener's posters, to fight in the trenches of Belgium and France, but had been caught instead in a smaller cause and had been pulled out of basic training at Watford to be thrown into street fighting against the Irish Rebels in Dublin

The full article is here http://www.crich-memorial.org.uk/sherwoodforesters.html

They suffered heavy casualties in Mount Street against DeValera and I haven't quoted more as it would drag the thread off topic.

ejmaztec

CDfm wrote: »

I came across an article on the Sherwood Foresters in Dublin here



The full article is here http://www.crich-memorial.org.uk/sherwoodforesters.html

They suffered heavy casualties in Mount Street against DeValera and I haven't quoted more as it would drag the thread off topic.

The article seems to portray the usual combination of bureaucracy and officer-class balls ups leading to a lot of deaths in the British Army. It never ceases to amaze me that a country that had the largest empire on the planet, never learned much from past mistakes.

snafuk35

CDfm wrote: »

She may have as she did speaking tours in the US.

http://www.dowlingfamily.info/i1910hit.htm

There is a thread somewhere on the forum if you search for William Patrick Hitler.

I came across an article on the Sherwood Foresters in Dublin here



The full article is here http://www.crich-memorial.org.uk/sherwoodforesters.html

They suffered heavy casualties in Mount Street against DeValera and I haven't quoted more as it would drag the thread off topic.

A lot of them were barely out of short pants.
When they arrived at Kingstown harbour one of them is said to have tried to chat up a few local girls with a French phrase book!
They got caught in a crossfire on Mount Street and they were bowling over dead and injured with the big heavy rounds of the Howth guns the rebels were firing cutting them down.
An officer saw one kid cry out and go down crying that he had been shot in the shoulder. He told him to pick up his bloody .303 Lee Enfield that it was just the recoil. He actually hadn't been hit at all.
I don't know what the British officers were thinking sending waves of Robin Hoods over the narrow bridge across the canal when there were bridges further down the canal they could have used to work around the rebel position and take it easily from the rear.
An absolute shambles.

CDfm

Back to the OP -this part stands out.

His name is given as Evan Price from the Rhonda of Wales in 1897, joined a Welsh regiment at the age of 17 in 1914 and served two years on garrison duty in Ireland at Islandbridge, Dublin before being sent to France.

It seems a lot more reasonable that regular army rather than young conscripts formed the firing squad.

So maybe Forsyth has a point here.

pedroeibar1

CDfm wrote: »

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=154652

Edit

Apart from the lack of ballistics knowledge shown by many, there is some very interesting stuff in that link, but it is a pity that the site registration process (required to search, or to see .jpgs, etc.,) is a nightmare. I gave up.

Forsyth was a journalist / war correspondent before he became a novelist. He got into trouble in Biafra for allegedly mixing fact with fiction in his reports for I think the Beeb. A bit like his novels. He annoyed several governments for giving too much detail on underworld tricks such as 'how to get a fake passport' in his books. He used his Biafra - Nigeria experience for The Dogs of War, and also used old OAS/Algerian connections & events for the Day of the Jackal. The book under discussion also has a great story about 'no snakes in Ireland'.

C’mon, the guy’s a novelist!
Rs
P.

CDfm

Cmon pedro, it is a piece of historical fiction, and the OP does know that and Forsyth has put a bit more thought into his yarn than you know who

Ruth Dudley Edwards

does into some of her Pearse writings.

One of the questions the OP has asked relates to who or what battalion the firing squad came from, and no one really seems to know.

Regular army from a nearby barracks seems very plausible to me.

Gee Bag

I read that book years ago. About half of the ten or so stories have an Irish theme. The fact that one of them was about a big bull of a Garda detective who played rugby for County Athlone always stuck with me. Makes me think that Old Freddie wasn't really bothered with the exact details when telling a story.

pedroeibar1

CDfm wrote: »

One of the questions the OP has asked relates to who or what battalion the firing squad came from, and no one really seems to know.

Regular army from a nearby barracks seems very plausible to me.

Agreed – military thinking would propose professional soldiers rather than Territorials.

Those to be executed could sit or stand; sitting was sometimes insisted upon as it was the option preferred by the authorities (because it was less traumatic for the shooters.) Similarly, the prisoner was blindfolded for the benefit of the squad, as it prevented direct eye contact with the prisoner when the order to fire came. Thewhite patch was pinned above the heart as a point of aim. Depending on the number of men (minimum usually five) in the squad at least one blank round (capped with wax rather than a bullet, giving the same recoil as a live round) was used so that all shooters had an opportunity to believe that they had not fired a fatal shot. Although the NCO in charge of the squad relayed the officer’s orders, it was the officer’s duty to deliver the coup-de-grace should death not be immediate, which is why the OIC had to wear a revolver.
Rs
P.

CDfm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Agreed – military thinking would propose professional soldiers rather than Territorials.

And, the OP has rightly hit on something.

Shall we sit back or say the OP has joined the "pantheon of Irish revisionists" :pac:

snafuk35

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Agreed – military thinking would propose professional soldiers rather than Territorials.

Those to be executed could sit or stand; sitting was sometimes insisted upon as it was the option preferred by the authorities (because it was less traumatic for the shooters.) Similarly, the prisoner was blindfolded for the benefit of the squad, as it prevented direct eye contact with the prisoner when the order to fire came. Thewhite patch was pinned above the heart as a point of aim. Depending on the number of men (minimum usually five) in the squad at least one blank round (capped with wax rather than a bullet, giving the same recoil as a live round) was used so that all shooters had an opportunity to believe that they had not fired a fatal shot. Although the NCO in charge of the squad relayed the officer’s orders, it was the officer’s duty to deliver the coup-de-grace should death not be immediate, which is why the OIC had to wear a revolver.
Rs
P.

I thought the coup de grace is always used?

CDfm

Here is a sensitively written piece

Stop 11: Sonebreakers Yard: 1916

STONEBREAKERS YARD

The first executions took place on May 3rd 1916 at 3am (which was dawn – given the way clocks were set at this time)

It is believed that the majority of the men executed stood to attention at the spot marked by this simple black cross which is where sandbags were stacked to receive the volley of gunfire from the firing squad.


Order of preparation prior to arrival:

Target (White cloth or paper about 4 inches wide)
Hand bound
Eyes blindfolded

Con Colbert asked for his target to be re-positioned as it was not quite over his heart.

Major John MacBride requested that his hands not be bound and promised to remain perfectly still for his execution.
This request was not granted.
He then asked to forgo the blindfold and the soldier replied
“Sorry Sir, but these are the orders.”

The firing squad consisted of twelve members of the Sherwood Foresters who took up formation 10 paces from their target. 6 knelt, and 6 stood, and when given the order by the commanding officer, fired 11 bullets at the heart of the man before them. The second part of the process was, if necessary, the coup de grace: a single gun shot with a revolver, made by the commanding officer to the back of the skull.


MAY 3RD

• Patrick Pearse

The orator of the proclamation of the republic and the man who tendered the unconditional surrender of the Irish rebels, was the first to be executed at the break of dawn, May 3rd 1916, at 3.30am.

His only visitor prior to his execution was a monk of the capuchin order, Father Aloysius who was denied access to the execution despite his request.

http://kilmainham.blogspot.com/

So the coup de grace was only required ,if nesscessary, and after a volley of 11 or 12 shots one would hope it would not have been nesscessary.

snafuk35

The records must be kept somewhere or else someone must have known the identities of the men.
The officers must have drawn lots or picked them at random or selected a specific platoon or platoons to source the riflemen from.
These guys probably went on to fight in combat elsewhere during the Great War so with the high casualty rates, dead or wounded and the high turn over of personnel they would have faded into obscurity.
How well of a record did the British keep of troops and who they were and where they came from and other details?
I found a book once listing all the dead from my own county who died in Irish regiments and other units of the British military.
I would presume a rigorous record was kept so if a list of names existed somewhere and someone kept diaries or wrote home about having to shoot 'Sinn Feiners' in Dublin we could find out who these guys were.
If some historian could pick up the ball and run with it, I'm sure it would be a fascinating book.
We know the biographies of Thomas Clarke, Patrick Pearse et al.
Wouldn't it be cool to know something about these footnotes in history?
I'd love to know what happened to the sniper who killed Nelson for instance or some more about the Sonny O'Neil who is said to have shot Collins dead.

CDfm

Valid points , history at the moment points towards the Sherwood Foresters though some people are sceptical that there is not any evidence to back it up.

I think you have hit on something and should have a go.

EDIT

snafuk35 wrote: »

some more about the Sonny O'Neil who is said to have shot Collins dead.

If you want to know a bit more check out The Man Who Made Ireland by Tim Pat Coogan p419 for about 5 or so pages.

http://books.google.ie/books?id=xscRAhBt2JgC&pg=PA421&lpg=PA421&dq=sonny+o%27neill+and+michael+collins+brother&source=bl&ots=8q1_o5nM5T&sig=V0jqgIe3l6pyL-XjtilPSf1TLU8&hl=en&ei=J-DETt-bAsS0hAeI1NTwDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=sonny%20o%27neill%20and%20michael%20collins%20brother&f=false

It is worth remembering that Noel Lemass , brother of Sean, was also killed and DeValera said it to him that he had to put it to one side.

These accounts of firing squads put it in context for me


http://trish-m.hubpages.com/hub/Firing-Squad-at-Dawn-Executions-in-World-War-One



While the likes of Clarke & Pearse were fully aware they would be executed it is unlikely that Michael Mallin expected it or that it would happen so soon.

On the night of May 7th, just hours before his execution, Michael Mallin, who had commanded the Citizen Army at Stephen's Green, wrote to his wife of how he had passed their house, a few hundred yards from Kilmainham gaol, as he was being led from Richmond Barracks to his final destination. He hoped to catch sight of his "darling Wife Pulse of my heart" or their four young children.

"The only one of my household that I could cast my longing Eyes on was poor Prinnie the dog she looked so faithfull (sic) there at the door . . . I am so cold this has been a such a cruel week."

Mallin tried to keep up a brave front, but the reality of impending death, and of his departure from his wife and children shattered him: "My heartstrings are torn to pieces when I think of you and them of our manly James happy go lucky John shy warm Una dadys (sic) Girl and oh little Joseph my little man my little man Wife dear Wife I cannot keep the tears back when I think of him he will rest in my arms no more . . . my little man my little man my little man, his name unnerves me again all your dear faces arise before me God bless you God bless you my darlings . . ."

Very few people who were members of firing squads ever come forward but one who did was Victor Silvester famous band leader and boy soldier.

This link here has some detail of the formation and procedures

http://www.histomil.com/viewtopic.php?f=249&t=1779

pedroeibar1

CDfm wrote: »

Here is a sensitively written piece

So the coup de grace was only required ,if nesscessary, and after a volley of 11 or 12 shots one would hope it would not have been nesscessary.

Thanks, that saved me some typing. We are going off-topic, but FWIW- More than 5 squad members were used to ensure that the officer did not have to fire a final shot. However, a single shot of the correct ammunition properly placed by any one of the firing squad would kill instantly. The .303 Lee Enfield rifle used by the squad members is a deadly gun – today, in the right hands it will bring down a deer at several hundred metres. In 1916 they would be firing a ‘Spitzer’ bullet – this is a two-part projectile - that shifts its centre of gravity on impact and tumbles, thereby causing a small entry and large exit wound.
Firing at a fellow soldier - albeit a deserter or even a rebel - at close range would be rather disconcerting to say the least, hence the ‘wild’ shots. A 1916 execution described in an eye-witness account in the ‘invisionzone’ link above, said something like ‘the rifles were waving about.............’

@snafuk35 - There’s always been debate on ‘the man who killed Nelson’ – some say it was the boatswain shooting from a crow’s nest, others say that it was a Marine in the crow's nest firing at the most decorated of a group of officers on the quarterdeck; many suggest it was a random shot and that the shooter cannot be identified. According to the history of the (French) 16th Infantry Regiment, it was a soldier named Robert Guillemard. He was sometime later transferred to the ‘Grande Armee’ and fought at Wagram, where he was wounded, then in Spain, taken prisoner, brought to Cabrera where he escaped and later served in Russia and Germany. See - http://www.histoire-empire.org/1805/trafalgar/bataille.htm
Guillemard published a book in 1826, very popular in its day, which was deemed fiction by many readers. See http://www.napoleon.org/fr/salle_lecture/articles/files/Pagesnapo_guillemard.asp#informations
Rs
P.