Armoured Cars , Tanks & Guns 1916-1924

nuac

gobnaitolunacy wrote: »

Looks a bit 'agricultural'.
Did it ever become a museum piece or was it scrapped?

Don't know about "agricultural".

Met Tom Moran when he was an elderly man. He did well to design and built this vehicle. He had a small garage behind his pub. Unlikely to have much equipment.

It was able to get from Mulranny to CLifden about 70 miles on usual route, but due to bridges being blown, was much longer over bad roads. It seems it's weakness was that the tyres were not armoured.

No idea where it is now, or if it still exists

nuac

Have looked at Joe Baker's book, which was also published by the Westport Historical Society

There is a photograph of Q of the W in it, but rather indistinct, and also obscured by some people standing around it. Only frent really visible which looks like the bonnet of a car. A large front wheel visible.

Can't pick out the boiler, but Tom Moran is quoted in the article as saying that the boiler's steel would not be thick enough to stop a direct hit from a bullet, but would be able to deflect most shots due it's round shape. Reported that tests were carried out and that he was correct

johnny_doyle

some WW1 era naval guns still operational in Ireland. These from the Saluting Battery used on Spike Island at New Year.

http://s1097.beta.photobucket.com/user/imrgonline/media/Facebook/12%20Pdr%20QF%2021%20gun%20salute%20Spike%20island/740601_10200289324663568_1608181074_o.jpg.html?sort=3&o=35

pedroeibar1

johnny_doyle wrote: »

some WW1 era naval guns still operational in Ireland. These from the Saluting Battery used on Spike Island at New Year.

http://s1097.beta.photobucket.com/user/imrgonline/media/Facebook/12%20Pdr%20QF%2021%20gun%20salute%20Spike%20island/740601_10200289324663568_1608181074_o.jpg.html?sort=3&o=35

Nice photos JD, some quite artistic also! Not sure if I posted these here before, but they also are vintage guns, at nearby Fort Davis. Taken in '56 or '57.

johnny_doyle

not taken by me unfortunately. The gun with the data visible is a naval QF 12 pounder 12cwt Mk III built by Elswick Ordnance Co in 1918.

Thanks for posting the photos from Fort Davis. Not seen these before.

roundymac

Yes indeed, I think that's a 6" gun being fired from Fort Davis, or Fort Carlisle as a lot of the locals would still know by. Fort Camden is on the opposite side of the channel(West). The other guns that the coastal defence's had were 9.2" AFAIK. I remember being on holiday in Crosshaven in the very early sixties, 61 or 62 when there was a shoot taking place. I was fasinated by the fact that you would see the flash of the gun, then a couple of seconds would go by before you would hear the "bang" of the gun. Also all the house's in the area would be warned to leave their windows open for fear the concussion of the guns could crack/shatter the glass.

dave ireland

queen of the west on ebay ? more like queen of the mad max films

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/261247911079?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

cormacocomhrai

Hi, for those interested in the construction of the Queen of the West a brief description from "The Men Will Talk to Me: Galway Interviews by Ernie O'Malley" (Mercier Press, 2013)

"The Great Southern and Western Railway, Mulranny, had a boiler which had once belonged to a ship. The railway company brought it over from … and they built it into an independent room. There was another boiler inside of it and the water circulated between the two of them. We blew a hole in the room to get it out and we put it on rollers on a concrete street at the back of the hotel and we used the yard to work in. We dismantled it, took out the small boiler and the outside one was so big that you could nearly stand up inside of it. The bottom of it was open for it had been secured to the floor. The top of it had a trap door and so we got … it on to the chassis of a lorry,
a Crossley tender which [had] double wheels on the back, but there was one great snag, for we had pumped this on the wire wheels on the chassis. We let the boiler out over the engine and he had to plate it between the engine and the radiator and put a plate in front with a loophole for the driver. There was a plate which could be let down to cover the driver. We got in by the manhole in the back which was two feet square nearly, and we also put one plate in the back for protection. We had four plates for the sides which we put over the wheels. It was a good armoured car, but a bomb buckled one of its wheels."

pp.159-160.

" ‘The Queen of the West’, our home-made armoured car, was painted grey and I saw fellows go up and stroke it affectionately.”

p.194

Charawacky

Hi
Very interested in how the Queen of the west looked, are there any reference photos other than those shown here and on the hmvf?

I have a couple of Tender chassis without bodies, one is very poor, one is good and I have plans to make one from the two and already have plans for it, but an interchangeable boiler body might be a good idea for the centenary?

I am currently starting working my way though the mechanics having just rebuilt a gearbox.

More images please

Tom

cormacocomhrai

Sorry Tom,
the only photo I've seen of the Queen of the West was the one already mentioned earlier in this thread. In Revolution: A Photographic History by Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc there is a photo of an armoured car made from a boiler during the Easter Rising which may be of interest.

vintary

Charawacky wrote: »

Hi
Very interested in how the Queen of the west looked, are there any reference photos other than those shown here and on the hmvf?

I have a couple of Tender chassis without bodies, one is very poor, one is good and I have plans to make one from the two and already have plans for it, but an interchangeable boiler body might be a good idea for the centenary?

I am currently starting working my way though the mechanics having just rebuilt a gearbox.

More images please

Tom

Hello again Tom, lost your email over the years can you PM it to me I have a better image of the Queen. The other Irish armoured cars on that ebay page are quit good "for Illustrations", the Grey Ghost is very good as is the other Armoured Crossley The Listowel. although I would suggest this car was called the "Parson" not "Listowel", she seen some serious action around Kilmallock, Bruree and patrickswell in Limerick before retreating into Kerry in July/August 1922. ( in my opinion-?) this is one of the improvised cars built in Ireland by the British in late 1920 early 1921 and not built by the IRA in 1922.

eireannBEAR

ok so this photo doesnt meet the thread criteria,but still,i like it. they look more like nazis than the irish army. its very interesting.

Davindra

I found this thread because of a curious painting I saw for sale a few weeks back Really sorry I didn't get a photo with the phone but it seemed wrong to do that).

It was a slightly water-damaged amateur watercolour of a "mayday" type parade/review of British soldiers and WWI tanks going north up O'Connell st past the post office (which, in my recollection was flying the tricolour, though I could be wrong). It really made me do a double take.

I am not great on military history but I never even thought there could have been be such a thing.

Seeing the posts and photos here makes me wonder if it could have been one last show of "Imperial Might" in 1921/22 ? Any ideas?

johnny_doyle

Pity about not getting a photo. Would have been interesting to see.

The last real parade of note by the British in Dublin centre was the 1919 Peace/Victory Parade. This didn't take place in O'Connell/Sackville St as it was still in ruins. There are a few photos of this showing the rhomboid WW1 tanks as well as Whippet tanks going past the stand at the Bank of Ireland/College Green.

http://johnny-doyle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/victory-parade-dublin-1919.html

There was a British military review in 1922 but this was in the Phoenix Park

If the soldiers looked British (ie the Brodie style tin helmet) and were in small armoured cars, then the parade is likely to be from 1941 onwards e.g.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/spectacular-parade-in-dublin/query/Dublin+parade

Davindra

The only vehicles were the Rhomboid tanks. No horses and a big sort of "viewing platform". All in combat gear. No civilians in sight.

Apart from the platform it looked more like an invading army than a military review...sinister...a real show of force.

It was a very "naive" style of painting, maybe it was a teenage boy down the country imagining the victory parade? Or "enhancing" the Irish Army?

I don't think those Rhomboid tanks were still in use in 1941.

I should have photographed it...I had a gut feeling I was looking at history.

The smaller tanks bringing up at the rear of the named (Golikell, Fanny's Sister etc) 17th tank corps tanks were the vehicles on the painting.

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt131/Duffy83/23ecee44-685d-45d1-979d-6bafa2a0bd82.jpg

johnny_doyle

some other photos from the Dublin 1919 Peace/Victory parade

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3141/2989091606_d6cb9d3b86_z.jpg

http://www.andrewcusack.com/net/wp-content/uploads/victoryparadedublin.jpg

The rhomboid tanks weren't in service with the British in 1941. They were never in service with the Free State/National Army forces. Don't think the Irish armed forces used tanks until after WW2.

Some rhomboid tanks had been in service early in WW2 with the French. There were a few knocking about the Baltic states/Russia at the start of WW2; not sure if these were active or museum pieces.

A Victory Parade was held in London on the same day as the one in Dublin with a more international contingent

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/victory-march/query/victory+parade+London

Davindra

I wonder if either my memory (or the painter's! Because I have a near photographic memory and every photo of the GPO at the time jumps at me as the building in the painting, just as those smaller, maybe Mark V tanks did ) confused the National Bank with the GPO? Because the parade is going past in same direction and the stand looks similar. From that angle the roadway looks almost as straight as O'Connell St too.

People forget, these days we see streets from cars and buses but then most people were pedestrians and a pedestrian, unfamiliar with Dublin "could" easily confuse the National Bank with the GPO if he was painting from memory and/or published drawings or photos. The path clip of London parade itself (not the buildings) looks eerily similar too, but I remember staring hard at the picture to be sure it wasn't from UK, and even if I mistook the GPO I didn't mistake the tricolour (which was hardly flying in Dublin in 1919 either! Poetic licence and wishful thinking?)

At least I know the right tanks were really here now.

johnny_doyle

any chance of tracking back to the painting and getting a photo?

The London parade had slightly newer tanks (4 x Hornet Medium Cs) which can be seen in the following article, passing the temporary Cenotaph set up for the parade

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2445626/Incredible-bravery-WWI-tank-crew-survived-72-hours-bombarded-Germans-side.html

Clair Wills in "Dublin 1916 The Siege of the GPO" suggests that the 1930's saw the transformation of O'Connell Street into a national parade ground. I think College Green was used through the 1920s (open to correction on this) as per the Victory Parade of 1919, e.g.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/st-patricks-day-celebrations-aka-st-patricks-day-1

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/st-patricks-day-celebrations-aka-st-patricks-day-2

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/st-patricks-day-in-dublin-1/query/Dublin

Some nice views of the Rolls Royce armoured cars and some artillery in the above.

The GPO re-opens 1929

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/after-13-years/query/Dublin

Davindra

Sadly no chance of getting a photo...let's hope someone who recognizes history must be shared bought it and it turns up elsewhere?

I think 1919 College Green probably nails it (albeit with some details of the wrong neo classical building filled in).

Looking at this again:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3141/2989091606_d6cb9d3b86_z.jpg

If you look at the lead horse, just to the left of him there is a small "V" shaped gap in the crowd on the nearside and the painting would have been from about that perspective, looking directly to the stand, where the bend in the road would have been invisible.

vintary

Although the College Green (tank) parade is always referred to as "bank of Ireland",,, in 1919 this was the Irish house,s of parliament. Leinster house has only been used since 1922.

vintary

Not great in quality or detail but a couple of my original images from 1919 of the 17th battalion tank corps equipment been shipped to Ireland (note the date "April")

Davindra

Thank you Vintary, that is truly incredible to see.

Thinking about it, the British hardly shipped tanks here just to make up numbers in parades, perhaps that old painting did capture the spirit of a deliberate show of strength after all?

tonyheaney

johnny_doyle wrote: »

tank in Limerick with the Royal Welsh/Welch Fusiliers

http://mdonovan.free.fr/rwf/pages/2_rwf_limerick.htm

Also from Limerick, sample Irish Motor Directory listings (I'm keen to see the equivalent for Dublin and Belfast given the number of military vehicles that appear to have been registered in these cities)

http://limerick.ie/history/localstudies/ownersoflimerick-registeredmotorvehicles1912-1914/

is there a date for these?