Irish general who stood by his men to the bitter end
For a balanced understanding of our Irish history, your main message must be that the Somme involved ‘tens of thousands’ (to use the President’s phrase) of almost anonymous Southern Irish and their families — particularly in Munster.
However, I am mildly puzzled that you make only the barest references to WB Hickie (aka Major-General Sir William Bernard Hickie, KCB) and print no image.
Hickie took over command of the 16th (Irish) Division from Sir Lawrence Parsons in 1915, supervised its training before it went into the line, cared for its soldiers and commanded it in battle right through 1916 and 1917 until its tattered (by then mainly non-Irish) remnants were effectively disbanded in 1918.
Given the fraught politics of the time, the appointment was an extremely delicate one.
In fact, not only was Hickie a Catholic but, according to family tradition, he and his younger brother, Carlos, were among the few career officers in the British army’s ‘Irish’ garrison at the time of the Curragh Mutiny in 1914 which had indicated they would march against the Ulster Volunteers.
He fought a long campaign against the War Office to get the famous shamrock shoulder-flash for his division.
After the heavy casualties in France during 1916, he protested in person several times against what he saw as an ‘unbalanced’ — if not deliberate — policy of sending his exhausted Irish troops repeatedly back into the front line.
Though his personal loyalty to the British Crown was beyond question, I have evidence which suggests he was not regarded by the likes of Lord French and Henry Wilson (part of the deeply pro-unionist coterie who ran the British army) as being a safe pair of hands politically.
Indeed, he was sometimes referred to as ‘the Sinn Féin general’ — though nothing could be more ludicrous.
After the war, maybe sensing a ‘Green ceiling’, he retired while still very young for a general and became president of the British Legion (Southern Ireland) 1920-1950.
In the elections for Seanad Éireann in 1925, when the entire country was one constituency, he was near the top of the poll and served in the Seanad until 1936.
According to one family tradition, Carlos was offered command of British troops in Kerry in 1920 or 1921.
When he tried to point out gently to the War Office that his sister lived outside Killarney (and all that that would imply), he was told to take the job — or resign.
He resigned with 10 or 15 years of his career still to go.
These stories illustrate in a very direct way the anomaly in which those ‘tens of thousands’ who served in British uniforms in two world wars found themselves.
Seen by the British establishment as Papist Paddies and not to be trusted, they found themselves regarded as traitors in the official narrative of our State.
Never for one moment doubting their Irish identity, almost all of WB Hickie’s male (and some female) relatives served in the British forces in the world wars. One exception was his nephew, the late Rickard Deasy, who served in the Irish defence forces during the Emergency, 1939-1944, and was subsequently president of the National Farmers’ Association (now IFA).
To declare my interest: given that WB Hickie was my grandmothers’ elder brother, I, as a small boy, knew him as ‘Uncle Bill’.
Maurice O’Connell
19 Forge Park
Oakpark
Tralee
Co Kerry
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