Hello all.
I am trying to find out a bit about the role of the Army in Dunmore East during the Emergency and I would love to hear from anybody who might have served there at the time.
It was one of the few Irish ports which British trawlers could officially put into during the war to shelter from bad weather without the fear of being interned. My late uncle, Gerald Bruen, who volunteered for the duration, was based there for some time during that period. I remember him once telling me that there was a healthy barter system in operation whereby butter, eggs, bacon, etc were exchanged for coal, oil and fish. (I suppose they were all steam trawlers then). He had another story about a lorried detachment travelling from the Curragh Camp to Dunmore in early 1942 I think it was. Rationing would have been biting fairly severely at that stage of the war with the uboats running rampant in the Atlantic. The weather was atrocious with heavy snow and low visibility. The lead lorry unintentionally knocked over a donkey and killed it. As there was a butcher among the troops, the donkey was heaved into the back of the lorry and provided fresh meat for the garrison in Dunmore for a couple of days. He always remembered that donkey stew with relish. (Gerry's father enlisted as a private in the Connaught Rangers in the 1890s and, having reached the rank of Sergeant-Major, was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the field in 1915 in France, ending the war with the rank of Major and the Military Cross.)
Anyway, I would be delighted to receive any info or pointers as to where to look for more about Dunmore at that time.
Thanks, Arthur Boland
I am trying to find out a bit about the role of the Army in Dunmore East during the Emergency and I would love to hear from anybody who might have served there at the time.
It was one of the few Irish ports which British trawlers could officially put into during the war to shelter from bad weather without the fear of being interned. My late uncle, Gerald Bruen, who volunteered for the duration, was based there for some time during that period. I remember him once telling me that there was a healthy barter system in operation whereby butter, eggs, bacon, etc were exchanged for coal, oil and fish. (I suppose they were all steam trawlers then). He had another story about a lorried detachment travelling from the Curragh Camp to Dunmore in early 1942 I think it was. Rationing would have been biting fairly severely at that stage of the war with the uboats running rampant in the Atlantic. The weather was atrocious with heavy snow and low visibility. The lead lorry unintentionally knocked over a donkey and killed it. As there was a butcher among the troops, the donkey was heaved into the back of the lorry and provided fresh meat for the garrison in Dunmore for a couple of days. He always remembered that donkey stew with relish. (Gerry's father enlisted as a private in the Connaught Rangers in the 1890s and, having reached the rank of Sergeant-Major, was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the field in 1915 in France, ending the war with the rank of Major and the Military Cross.)
Anyway, I would be delighted to receive any info or pointers as to where to look for more about Dunmore at that time.
Thanks, Arthur Boland
Comment