Dick Walsh
This is an extract from: "Irish abroad "
The Boer War saw two separate Irish brigades fight on the
side of the Dutch South Africans. The more significant unit,
led by a future leader of the Easter 1916 rebellion, Major
John McBride (working in South Africa as a mine assayer),
grew out of a large Irish population in the Transvaal and a
number of 1798 centenary committees in Johannesburg and
Pretoria. Motivated by antipathy towards Britain and
including a number of unreconstructed Fenians, the Irish
battalions were opposed by an army which had an Irish
Brigade of its own. The committed amateurs ran into the
professionals on more than one occasion. At the Battle of
Dundee the pro-Boers took a number of members of the Royal
Irish Fusiliers prisoner. Some of the Irish Brigade even
recognised and exchanged greetings with the defeated
Fusiliers. Irish units also took both sides in the Spanish
Civil War, but while the political and religious gulf
between them was clear their motivation was identical. Young
idealists, like the poet Charlie Donnelly, the socialist
Frank Ryan or Communist Party member Michael O'Riordan, went
to Spain to join the International Brigade and to defend the
Republic against fascism. But men like Dick Walsh from
Carlow and Denis Reynolds from Cavan joined General Eoin
O'Duffy's Irish Brigade to fight godless communism and to
preserve the Roman Catholic religion in Spain.
Read the full extract:
"Irish abroad"
Source: Terry Curran c2007
Light
Brigade Hero Dies!
Daniel
Dowling Rode in Famous British Charge at Balaklava.
Special to The
New York Times, July 16, 1913, Wednesday. Page 7.
"Utica, July 15.-In the
County Almshouse in Rome today died a survivor of the Charge
of the Light Brigade at
Balaclava on Oct. 25 1854. He
was Daniel Dowling, born in Carlow, Ireland, in 1832. He
enlisted in the British Army, going at once into the Crimean
Peninsular, where he was in many battles. He was one of the
very few who came out of the charge of the six hundred
without a wound, and not until the battle of Inkerman was he
wounded. After the Crimean War Dowling went to many places,
fighting for England.
He saw service in Malta, Egypt, India,
Australia and South America. He came to the United States
with the intention of joining the Union Army. When he was on
his way here the surrender of Lee was made. Dowling's only
sister had gone with her husband to South America. He began
a search for her and for years travelled in many countries
on his quest, which never was successful. He had distant
relatives in this region and came here to live, taking up
farming. Age coming on, he was compelled to seek the
almshouse.
The veteran had all his discharge papers,
but he never received any assistance from the British
Government. Among the few possessions he retained to the
last were the spurs he wore in the famous charge and a copy
of Tennyson's poem."
Source: Terry Curran c2010
& New York Times.archives.
“Syracuse Herald Journal,” Syracuse,
New York, USA 24 Oct 1954
Light Brigade Vet Lived in
Sangerfield
By George W. Walter
ONEIDA – Monday will mark the 100th
anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade in the
Crimean War, immortalized in the famous poem by Alfred
Lord Tennyson. In Oneida and Madison Counties onlt a few
people now remember that Daniel Dowling, formerly of
Sangerfield, was the last surviving Crimean War veteran
of the immortal Charge. Dowling died in Rome, July 15,
1913, at the age of 81. A niece, Miss Lucy Dowling,
resides at 1131 Summit pl., in Utica, and a nephew was
the late Supreme Court Justice William Dowling, also of
Utica.
DAN DOWLING was born in County Carlow,
Ireland, in 1832, a member of a large family. He grew up
in Ireland, a handsome, red-headed, wiry man. He
enlisted in the British Army when the war fever swept
through the British Isles in January, 1854, just a few
weeks before England joined with France and Turkey to
sweep Russia from the Baltic and Crimea. Dowling became
one of the cavalrymen in the Light Brigade. On Oct. 25,
1854, he was with the 700 members of the Brigade under
Lord Cardigan, stationed at the western end of the
valley under the heights of Chersonese, awaiting orders
to plunge into the battle of Balacava. The English Heavy
Brigade had already attacked. In a desperate effort to
recapture Turkish guns lost in the morning fighting,
Lord Raglan gave the order for the Light Brigade to try
and prevent the Russians from removing the guns. The
orders became hopelessly jumbled in their transmission
and the Light Brigade rode directly into the Russian
guns… into the Valley of Death.
The Brigade would have been annihilated
if it had not been for the brilliant charge of the
French 4th Chasseurs d’Afrique against the Fedoukine
Hills. Only 200 of the Light Brigade survived. One of
them was Dan Dowling. He fought bravely through the war.
In the battle of Inkerman he was struck by a shell
fragment in the head and badly wounded. He was taken to
one of the crude hospitals that was in charge of a brave
English nurse named Florence Nightingale. After his
wound healed he returned to duty. After the treaty of
peace he saw service at other British outposts at Malta,
in Egypt, India, Australia and South America. Letters
from home related that two of his brothers, William and
John Dowling had migrated to the United States.
Dan Dowling resigned from the army when
he had only one year more to serve to obtain a life
pension. A younger sister, Margaret Dowling, married
young and with her husband, moved to Australia. She was
never heard from again, although Dan Dowling travelled
twice around the world searching for her.
Source: Sue Clement
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