Page 20 - Greystones Archaeological Historical Society

WOMEN IN WORLD WAR I

Another motivation was money itself. Page 8 of the letter lets
it slip that before joining up Jack had resorted to the pawn shop
out of necessity:

‘Dearest Biddy. I am sending you back the two pawn tickets.
Biddy don’t think bad of me for doing so. When you get the
money run into Dublin and see about it. Tell the man that I
have gone to the front and I would not like to lose it. Biddy,
for God’s sake don’t forget to see to them both. How I should
be so unlucky as to have them in there? No matter, God is
good and we will be together again.’

The letter is peppered with religious references. Jack asks
Biddy to keep her mother in good spirits saying ‘tell her to keep
the heart up as we will meet again with the help of God and his
holy mother.’

This young man never once mentions the King or nationalism
or any other political allegiance. His attachment is to his young
woman and to his Roman Catholic upbringing. It’s doubtful even
that Jack went to war to see the world. He’s only gone a few days
and hasn’t yet reached the front yet already he is writing:

‘I miss my cup of tea and rasher.’

The love story between Jack and Biddy didn’t have a happy
ending. On the 14th August 1914, just four days after the letter
was posted, Jack landed in Rouen with his fellow members of
the Royal Irish Rifles, 2nd Battalion. His war was to last less than
ten weeks. By the time he got caught up in his last day of fighting
on 27th October, his Battalion had lost practically all of its
officers.

On the day Jack died, only 46 men and two officers survived
out of the group of 250 men and five remaining officers that had

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