Christopher Kearns was 18 years old in 1922 when he came home from work and informed his mother he was joining the National Army.
He made a few sandwiches, wrapped them in newspaper and departed. “His family never saw him again,” says Rose O’Keeffe of her great great-uncle who was from Rathfarnham in Dublin.
Having lied about his age to get into the army, the young soldier was killed alongside three others when anti-treaty forces threw a grenade into their armoured car in Ferrycarrig, Co Wexford, on October 22nd, 1922. Archival documents state he was wounded in 73 places and his uniform was in such a state it could not be given to the family.
Private Kearns’s great, great great-niece Ellen Ward said that, until recently, her relative’s death “wasn’t really spoken about or acknowledged”.
It was the same in many of the families of the roughly 810 National Army soldiers who died in the Civil War. This voluntary amnesia was also present at a national level. Despite being on the winning side, the sacrifice of pro-treaty soldiers remained largely unremembered. For almost a century there wasn’t even a complete list of the war dead from National Army side.
An event on Sunday in Glasnevin Cemetery sought to rectify that with the unveiling of a new monument to commemorate the National Army dead. About 180 are buried in the army plot in the cemetery, beside the grave of their first chief of staff, Michael Collins.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lieut Gen Seán Clancy joined descendants of the National Army dead for the unveiling, which is one of the last big events of the Decade of Centenaries marking the foundation of the State.
The National Army dead were all men, mainly working class and mostly unmarried. Some had experience fighting in the War of Independence, the Easter Rising or with the British army during the first World War but most were military novices.
They were mainly aged in their early 20s but some were much younger. Gerald McKenna was 16 when he was killed alongside his 18-year-old brother Patrick in Co Cork a month after joining up.
The dead “gave their lives in the service of the state during the tragic and critical period at the foundation of our democracy”, said Lieut Gen Clancy, adding that they had been forgotten “for far too long.”
“Whatever the often very legitimate reasons our forebears may have had for forgetting in the intervening 100 years, I think it’s appropriate now that I, as a 32nd Chief of Staff of Óglaigh na hÉireann, should finally take this opportunity to rehabilitate their memory,” he said.
As well as the new monument, a new interactive digital roll of honour of the Civil War dead is now available for public viewing in the Glasnevin Cemetery museum.
Much of this is based on the work of military archivists led by Lieut Col Stephen MacEoin. He said that in the 1920s and 1930s the wounds of the Civil War were so raw that it was “not appropriate” to honour the National Army dead, which led to them becoming forgotten.
“We’ve finally given them their rightful place. Because, really, the State, as a modern democratic entity, would not have come into being if not for the contribution of these soldiers.”
