Mother’s Great War diary digitised

The year was 1916.

The place, Dublin. But all Mary Martin had in mind was the safety of her 20-year-old son who had donned a British army uniform and gone to fight the Germans in the Great War.

Mary, a widow and mother of 12 living in affluent Monkstown, south Dublin, started writing on New Year’s Day 1916 after receiving word that her son Charlie was missing in action on the Salonika front in the Balkans.