Page 23 - Greystones Archaeological Historical Society

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 8

The source of the dispute was not recorded but whatever the
reason, Joe Brien struck this superior officer. In the official record
it seems that the physical act was considered secondary to the
offence of using insubordinate language. We can only imagine
what Joe said to the Officer. Private Brien was convicted before
a military court and received a sentence of 12 months detention
for his words and actions. Had he managed to serve that
sentence he would have been spared from a worse fate.

Under these circumstances I am quite sure that Joe Brien’s
mother Mary would have been pleased to see him in prison. But
Private Brien served just weeks of his prison sentence when he
was suddenly released and compulsorily transferred from his
Royal Irish Fusiliers regiment to a battalion of the North Irish
Horse regiment fighting in Ypres. As it turned out, young Joe
Brien had been handed a death sentence.

By all accounts the situation was pretty desperate in Ypres.
According to the records, on the morning that Joe Brien was
fatally wounded his battalion had no food. The army diary
discloses that the men were sent out to fight in the cold without
any breakfast because rations had become so depleted.

Joe Brien died of his wounds in Ypres on a cold day in early
October 1918 barely a month before the end of the war. He is
buried in a graveyard close to where he died.

Earlier this year I had the great honour of visiting Joe Brien’s
grave in a small well-tended cemetery of simple white
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gravestones just outside the beautiful town of Ypres. Joe’s grave
plot is at the boundary hedge of the cemetery, overlooking fields
and countryside. He is buried under the shadow of a large lilac
bush.

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