Kilcullen at Gallipoli

There's a 30 metres tall obelisk on the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey which has a link with Kilcullen.



The Helles Memorial, seen by every ship that passes through the Dardanelles, records all who died on the eight-month campaign by British Commonwealth and French forces trying to force Turkey out of the so-called 'Great War'. A downloadable detailed history of the campaign is available here from the Commonwealth Graves Commission (by whose kind permission the photograph above is reproduced).

Among the names is one Patrick Toole, a Private in the the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He was killed on Friday 11 May, 1915. He was a son of Patrick and Bridget Toole of Kilcullen, according to the official records. He was also the brother of Ray Donoghue's grandfather Michael.

Ray is best known to new Kilcullen residents as the genial occasional barman in Fallon's Cafe Bar. But to older Kilcullenites he is somebody we grew up with and also remember well his contribution to Kilcullen Drama Group in former years.

Private Toole -- Ray reckons the lack of the 'O' prefix is a mispelling, as his family recollections are all of the O'Toole name -- didn't make it too far into the campaign that began on 26 April 1915. His death is just one of 21,000 commemorated on the obelisk.

Ray himself has no recollection of Patrick, but does of his grandfather Michael, also a soldier in the Irish Fusiliers. "He was an assistant to a Chaplain in the war, and was a POW in Germany. He and Patrick were born in Yellow Bog and would have grown up there, and they went to school in Halverstown ... obviously not the school that's there now."

There's another Patrick, or 'Pat', in the story. A brother of Michael's. Ray's recall suggests that he might have been born after the original Patrick was killed, and was then given the same name as a dead brother. It's a common thing in Ireland.

That particular Patrick subsequently went to Australia, where he lived for 46 years. "I remember one day, I think I was about twelve, when somebody passed by the window and knocked at the door," Ray says. "I went out and said could I help him? He told me he was Pat, and he called out my grandfather's army number."

As Ray recalls it, 'they talked solid for two days, and my grandfather was hoarse when they came out of the room'. "He stayed for two weeks, and then went back to join his family in England, where they'd come back to after all those years in Australia."

Brian Byrne.