An Irishman's Diary

AMONG the latest exhibits at the National Museum in Collins Barracks are the remains of an old soldier named Dickie Bird. That’s him in the picture (right). And no, he doesn’t look his best these days. But then again, he was buried for more than 130 years – at another Dublin barracks, Clancy in Islandbridge – before they dug him up.

During his prime, the 1850s, he served with distinction in the Crimean War. Little is known about his later career, except that he spent the end of it what was then Islandbridge Barracks. It was there he met a soldier’s death, albeit by friendly fire. I’ll let the plaque over his original grave explain: “Near this spot lies the remains of Dickie Bird B7, Troop Horse 5th Dragoon Guards. Which was foaled in 1850, joined the regiment in 1853 and served throughout the entire Crimean Campaign from May 1854 to June 1856. He was shot on the 21st November 1874 by special authority of the Horse Guards, to save him from being sold at auction”.

I hope they at least gave him a blindfold. In any case, poor Dickie has now achieved posthumous fame. And his story makes an interesting addition to the museum’s military collection, in that he could be said to be one of the first modern war-horses, if only because he took part in what has been called the first modern war.

No doubt there are other claimants to that last title. But the Crimean introduced such new killing technology as the rifle. It featured the first strategic use of railways and the telegraph. Through Florence Nightingale, it brought modern nursing practices to the battlefield. Which in turn were an indirect result of another novel development: the rise of war reporting.

There was a strong Irish link here also, because two of the pioneering handful of correspondents in the Crimea were from this island. Wicklow-man Edwin Lawrence Godkin covered the conflict for the London Daily News(before going to America and founding that very influential journal, Nation). But it was a Dubliner, William Howard Russell, who, reporting in the London Times,made the war his own.

Born in what was then the open countryside at Jobstown, Tallaght, Russell turned to journalism only after his grandfather died, leaving him without the means to continue his law studies at Trinity College. He took to the new career with enthusiasm, however. And he soon earned himself that proud badge of any investigative reporter: the undying enmity of his subjects.

Daniel O'Connell, whose treatment of his tenants Russell wrote about critically, called him a "malignant hireling of the infamous Times". Yet despite his Anglo-Irish background and small-u unionism, Russell was no more popular with the military establishment. By the time of the Crimean campaign, he had become even more of a journalistic role model.

One front-line soldier described him contemptuously as "a vulgar low Irishman" who "sings a good song, drinks anyone's brandy and water and smokes as many cigars as a Jolly Good Fellow. He is just the sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters." For which and other reasons, he became a hate figure to the military leadership. Officers were instructed to shun him. He was not allowed to travel with the army. He was denied rations, forcing him to buy his own food and adding to his already-huge expense account. And when his tent was deliberately destroyed, the Timeshad to supply him with an iron hut instead.

Russell’s crimes against authority included a refusal to believe in the infallibility of the British officer class, which image was in any case already under pressure from events. For all its modernity, this was also a war of old-school military blunders. And on October 25th, 1854, Russell was on hand to witness the greatest blunder of all: the Charge of the Light Brigade.

The courage and stupidity of that cavalry attack against impregnable Russian forces was summed up famously by the French Marshal Bosquet: " C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre". Russell's vivid accounts also evoked mixed feelings at home: anger as well as pride. They inspired Tennyson, who started writing his celebrated poem within minutes of reading the Timesreports. But they also helped bring down a government.

It was in response to a direct challenge in Russell’s reports that Florence Nightingale went to the war. He also inspired yet another of the confict’s innovation: the Victoria Cross, introduced by the then queen in response to Russell’s many accounts of unrewarded heroism. The first recipient was – yes – an Irishman: Roscommon-born Luke O’Connor. And along with the remains of poor Dickie Bird, O’Connor’s medal is also currently on display at Collins Barracks, on loan from the UK.

I don’t know if the horse received any medals for his exploits. He may have been born too early in this regard. Not like another equine war hero, Vonolel, the “charger and faithful friend” of Lord Roberts of Kandahar: whose remains (the horse’s, that is) continue to repose undisturbed, just across the river from Collins Barracks, in the walled garden of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.

According to his gravestone, Vonolel was extensively decorated by Queen Victoria, with the Afghan medal, the Kandahar Star and the 1897 Jubilee medal. He also had the honour of parading behind her carriage in the jubilee procession. Thereafter, he lived out the rest of his retirement at Kilmainham, where he was allowed to die – so far as I know, at least – of natural causes.