Sir, – During his Remembrance Day address in St Patrick's Cathedral last Sunday ("Changes in attitudes to Irish war dead", November 10th), Rev Peter Rutherford singled out Michael John O'Leary "from west Cork" as an outstanding soldier on the western front.
More specifically, O’Leary was a native of Inchigeela, near Macroom. After his heroic VC exploits in February 1915, he became a celebrity figure in the British recruiting drive, one poster hailing him as “Mike O’Leary from Macroom, who spelt the Kaiser’s doom”. His father, smallholder Daniel, famously exhorted his listeners in Macroom town square to enlist because “if the Germans come over here, they’ll be a lot worse than the English, bad and all as they were”. It appears that the War Office hastily dispensed with his recruiting services thereafter. – Yours, etc,
JOHN A MURPHY,
Cork.