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HISTOIRE... © www.irisheyes.fr
 
One Irishman's War
by Jean O'Sullivan
"Heavy casualties. Wounded, wounded, wounded!" reads one of the last entries in a diary discovered after her grand-uncle's death at the Somme. Jean O'Sullivan retraces his brief war career.
With only 589 war graves, the village cemetery in Bouzincourt is modest by the terrible standards of Normandy battlefields. Even so, it takes time to find a grave when they all look the same.
We found what were looking for under a tall yew tree -- a simple white headstone inscribed with a regimental symbol, a cross, and the words: Rev. D.V. O'Sullivan
Chaplain to the forces
4th class
5th July 1916, age 26
Killarney, Ireland
After two decades living in France, and 90 years after his death, I had finally made the pilgrimage to my grand-uncle Donal's grave.
Donal O'Sullivan was killed by a shell at the front as he gave a soldier the last rites. The soldier survived and after the war v isited the family in Killarney to give a firsthand account of his death. He described him hearing confessions on horseback at the front while the shells flew and the penitent held the reins.
Among Donal's effects was a diary - a brief but moving record of four months in 1916 between his departure from Killarney on 28 Feb-ruary and his death on 5 July.
The first part lists the stages of his voyage to France (Dublin, London, Folkestone, Boulogne…). It refers to snow falling, visits to "Lady Gifford's convalescent home", letters from home and long journeys on horseback and bicycle. Donal sets up a field altar, visits the wounded and distributes general absolu-tion to the troops along with "sweets from home". He uses his leave to cycle to Le Touquet and visit Amiens Cathedral. The high points are "St Patrick's Day, shamrock for all" and "Howe departs and leaves me his bicycle!" The entry for Friday 28 April refers to the Easter 1916 rebellion in Dublin ("last Monday") and the arrest of Irish revolutionary Roger Casement.
The second part reflects the grim reality of life at the front. There are gas attacks, and he visits the trenches, spends a night in a dugout on Béthune Road, gets injured when hit by shrapnel. The entry covering 19-23 May reads: "Anointed the badly wounded. Jones killed, Taylor hit. Cheshires suffering. CO wounded. Adjutant killed. Anointing more soldiers…" He loses friends ("Poor Howard dead." "Poor Taylor died"). Two days before his death, he writes: "Ulster Division Rifles under heavy fire. Heavy casualties. Wounded, wounded, wounded! Busy day for chaplains." The last entry begins: "32nd Division badly done in, also 75th brigade…"
Between oral history, his own diary and other written records, Donal's brief life is unusually well documented. Following his death, the regional press eulogised his patriotism ("an ardent lover of the old land, its language and customs") and heroism ("from the first moment of his military career he was in the danger zone… at his own choice"). Some 68 priests attended the Requiem High Mass that the Bishop of Kerry celebrated for him in Killarney Cathedral. He is memorialized in the Irish war register and by a brass plaque (in Irish) in the Killarney Seminary.
Many years later, in 1940, a war memoir published in Africa spoke of a Father O'Sullivan who organised a mass for an anxious group of soldiers about to go to the front. The author compared it to the Last Supper. He was later distressed to learn that the young priest had been killed the same day. "All I ever knew about him was that he came from somewhere near Killarney, but I remember his face yet, and I feel deeply in his debt".
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