IRELAND’S REAL BAND OF BROTHERS The brothers kept marching to their deaths ‘When they came back, it was a different Ireland’
Eight sons from the Conlon family in Sligo went to war but just four returned, with two later dying from war-related conditions. The survivors, far from being hailed as heroes, were shunned for supporting the British and have only been given proper tribut
GROWING up in his granddad Jack’s house, in Sligo town, Brian Scanlon’s young head swirled with epic war stories most boys his age only heard about in movies or history books.
Brian — always mad for history — was a willing captive audience and his young ear was always cocked for stories. ‘He was a bit like Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses, telling his stories about the war,’ he laughs of his grandfather.
But unlike the fictional character, Jack needed no embellishment for his stories, in particular the one about his own grandfather, Michael Conlon. For Michael was one of eight brothers who went to fight in the First World War, with only four returning, two of whom later died of battle-related conditions.
As fascinating as the story was, Jack didn’t seem to like talking about it and had to be prodded to offer up the information.
‘My granddad never spoke to anyone about his grandfather’s brothers unless someone asked him,’ remembers father-of-three Brian, 58, sitting in the chilly work-hut in Sligo town’s cemetery, where he works as a caretaker.
‘If there was a war film on, someone would say “Jack, hadn’t you uncles in the First World War?” and then maybe he’d talk about it, usually with a few drinks on him, but otherwise he never brought it up.’
But all Brian’s life, the Conlon band of brothers were never far from his mind. Every day here at the cemetery, Brian walks past a white headstone on a family plot where Michael — who not only survived the war but went on to live a remarkable life — is buried.
Inscribed on the back of the headstone are the names of all of his brothers who died in the war: Thomas, Paddy, James, Alex and John.
Michael was the first to leave for battle. By then, Michael’s mother had died and his father had remarried and started a new young family, leaving Michael as the ‘head’ of the family. Still, he heard his call and off he went, soon followed by a steady stream of brothers.
The first of them to fall was his brother Thomas, 27, on May 13, 1915, at Ypres in Belgium. Despite his young age, he had already fought in Gallipoli twice.
Patrick, 34, who was serving in India when the war broke out, was next to go, killed in action on August 29, 1915. With two brothers down, in keeping with military tradition — just as happens in the war film Saving Private Ryan — Michael was traced and sent home to Sligo.
But the brothers kept marching to their deaths.
James, 30, was killed on April 15, 1916, near Basra in Iraq. Alex, 31, then already a widower who lost his wife in childbirth, died in Baghdad on October 28, 1917, where he is buried.
After the war, John followed Michael home but he only left his bed twice in five years before he died of trench fever, in 1922, aged 32. Another brother Andrew also lived and returned home to Sligo but he never got over the horrors of war that he had experienced and died in Sligo mental hospital in 1941.
Joseph, Michael’s eighth brother, also came home and went on to fight in the War of Independence, joining the Free State side during the Civil War, like many others.
The surviving brothers returned to an Ireland that felt betrayed by the British. So, remarkably, despite having fought so heroically, they were seen as having supported the British crown and came home to a country that shunned them as pariahs.
‘We must remember they came back to an Ireland where there were IRA policemen, it was just as the English were pulling out,’ Brian says. ‘Modest men went out there on the understanding they’d help them out and we’ll get back to the Home Rule that had been halted, as just as it was gaining real traction and the English were getting ready to leave, the war broke out.
‘When they came back, it was a different Ireland, the Rising had happened and the lads were seen as traitors, going out in British uniforms but of course they weren’t. Many of them were Nationalists. Lots of them were enlisted from the Connacht Rangers. Even the Bishop told them from the pulpit to go out and fight for small Catholic Belgium against Protestant Germany.
‘The Bishop and even Redmond, the head of the Nationalist Party, urged lads to go out so they could get the war over with and get back to Home Rule.’
He continues: ‘So with the IRA in key positions of authority running the town, after being in the British Army uniform, they saw you as a traitor. You didn’t go around saying you were in the war. You didn’t talk about it if you wanted your son to get a job or to go courting. You kept your mouth shut.’
Brian wonders whether it was this that in some way kept his own grandfather quiet about his brave relations or whether the veil of silence kept dropping through the generations.
As well as their physical and psychological wounds of war, now these young men had an added layer of shame to deal with too.
As it turned out, the Conlon brothers’ shared dreams of living in a free Ireland was something only one would realise: Michael. But he did it with gusto.
For Michael went on to live a life less ordinary, brimming with outlandish tales that reads like a movie script in itself.
He had 13 children and 97 grandchildren and was a well-known community character.
He served as the Labour Party mayor of Sligo and was also the chair of Sligo Rovers football club.
But he was elevated to local legend status when he pulled off the biggest and most unlikely coup performed by arguably any mayor anywhere.
In 1939, he signed Everton footballing hero Dixie Dean — who scored a record 60 league goals in the 1927-28 season — to help Sligo Rovers in their bid for the FAI Cup that year.
‘It was like Cristiano Ronaldo coming to play for Sligo — that’s how big he was,’ says Brian with a big grin. ‘Somehow he got Dixie Dean over to
play for one season. There were thousands here who came out to meet him — you couldn’t get out to the railway station. It reminds me of that film Gandhi. He came over and scored something like 12 goals in seven games.’
Brian’s passion for history has not only led to him uncovering his family’s incredible past but also that of hundreds more like them, who fought on the frontlines. Those who never came home but who history forgot.
And because Brian never gave up digging into his own relations’ story, come Armistice Day on November 11, these forgotten Sligo men — and one woman, a nurse called Lizzy McLynn, who was on a ship to a field hospital in England that was torpedoed by a German U-boat after leaving Dun Laoghaire in 1918 — will be honoured in their hometown.
What started out as a family history project 25 years ago took on a life of its own when he started collecting the names of Sligo’s war dead. The Irish War Memorial Records listed 395 from Sligo who died.
But, thanks to Brian’s work, in 2014, the names of 551 of Sligo’s forgotten fallen men, and one woman, were commemorated at a ceremony in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, and their names added to the cathedral wall.
That was a special moment for him, as it was the first time the Catholic Church commemorated Ireland’s war dead.
Brian’s research took him far and wide and relations from around the world got in touch with stories of their forgotten relations.
His work continued apace and now the number of Sligo’s war dead stands at 607.
Historians like Brian around the country continue to dig, trying to paint a true picture of the largely untold toll the war took on Irish families. The Irish War Memorial Records put the figure of fallen Irish at 49,400 but just 30,987 of them were born in Ireland.
Historians now say a truer figure is between 28,000 and 35,000 and, thanks to devoted diggers like Brian, they are being remembered for their sacrifices.
Come November 11, the crowds won’t be as large as they were for Dixie Dean, but hundreds are expected to turn out to remember Sligo’s fallen men, with an official ecumenical ceremony at the Cenotaph on Saturday at 11am.
The following day, more than 600 will march through Sligo to Cleveragh Park, where the sod will be turned for a new monument going up, with the names of the 609 who died in the First World War. Brian is part of a group raising €60,000 in funds for the monument.
It will be an emotional day for many, not least Brian, as he remembers the band of brothers.
‘When November 11 comes, I’ll march up the Pearse Road here and I’ll lay a poppy wreath and I’ll be proud to do it. When Easter Sunday comes, I’ll be the first fella in the gate there up at the IRA plot and have my lily on for the march,’ says Brian. ‘To me it’s our history. These men did what they thought was best for the country.
‘These were the decisions these young men made in 1914 and I respect them for that. I will lay a poppy wreath on Remembrance Day every year for as long as I’m going.’
‘These men did what they thought was best’