‘In the thick of the scrap’
JAMES RYAN was born about 1887, the son of James Ryan and Catherine Roche of Raheen, Tombrack.
He was a 2nd Lieutenant with the 47th Infantry Brigade, part of the 16th Division of the British Expeditionary Force and later with the 7th Leinster Regiment at Rouen, France. A poignant letter from James to his cousin John Breen, dated August 26, 1917, has survived in which he expresses his feelings at being back on the battlefield after a short period on leave in Ireland: ‘I am back in France in the thick of the old scrap again. It did seem rough after a few priceless days at home when I got back to this old place with its graveyards and desolation. Most my chaps got scrapped in the last show. We are now in comparative quiet to what it has been. Ireland looked well while I was at home. There is no country feeling the effect of this old war here than Ireland. This is a quare old war. Nearly all the chaps who came out with me are long since gone out of mess.’
James managed to survive the battlefield but was killed in a railway accident on his way to rejoin his base depot at Calais on January 13, 1918. After the train stopped at Serqueux station, James was found seriously injured on the tracks. He died a short while later and is buried at St Sever Military Cemetery, Rouen.