Irishmen and the Victoria Cross..

Irishmen and the Victoria Cross:

The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the British Army, soldiers of the Commonwealth countries and previous British Empire territories.

It was introduced in January 1856 by Queen Victoria to reward such acts of bravery during the Crimean War and has continued ever since. It has been awarded to 1,353 people. One in seven of those who received it were Irishmen (188).

Traditionally it is claimed for some unknown reason that the medals are minted from gunmetal from Russian cannon captured at Sevastopol in the Crimea but recent discoveries tend to throw doubt on this story.

There are many avid collectors of these medals due to their rarity and it is highly prized by the same collectors. The price of one at auction can reach over £400,000 ($750,000).

Irishmen have always been a source of ‘cannon-fodder’ for the British Army and hundreds of thousands of Irish men and boys have died over the centuries. There must be something in the ‘Irish Fighting Blood’ that gives them the edge on other nationalities.

One in particular comes to the fore: Michael O’Leary was born on 29th September 1890 in Macroom, County Cork. During the First World War he joined the First Battalion of the Irish Guards of the British Army. He became a Lance-Corporal and was fighting in France.

On 1st February 1915, at Cuinchy, France he was one of a storming party, which moved against the enemy’s barricaded position. He rushed ahead of his troops and killed five Germans who were the first line of defence. He continued across open ground for about sixty yards and attacked the second line of defence. After killing three more of the enemy, he then took two more as prisoners. In fact, O’Leary for all intents and purposes, took the position by himself and saved the remainder of his comrades from being fired upon. For his actions, he was awarded the VC.

The British Army in the hope that his actions would result in many more fellow Corkmen (and Irishmen) joining-up published the above recruiting poster. His father, after making a speech in his hometown, in which he praised his son for his heroic bravery was asked to make further speeches on recruiting platforms. His employment did not last long.

The following is the gist of his first and only speech from an official recruiting platform: "Mr. O’Leary senior, father of the famous VC, speaking in the Inchigeela district, urged the young men to join the British army. "If you don’t", he told them "the Germans will come over here and will do to you what the English have been doing for the last seven hundred years".

Needless to say his speech never made the papers once the censors got their blue pens on the article.

After the war he and his family emigrated to Canada where he became an Inspector in the Ontario Provincial Police. He returned to England in 1925.

He enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment during World War Two and retired as a major in 1945.

He died on 21 August 1961 aged 70.

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