Elite schools provided Catholic officer class

YOUR three-part feature on the Battle of the Somme gave insights into the Irish role in World War I.

Allan Prosser’s questions and answers (Irish Examiner, June 28) referred to the relatively low numbers of Roman Catholics from Ireland who were commissioned as officers in the British army.

It is necessary to point out, however, that leading schools — especially Clongowes, Belvedere, Castleknock and CBC Cork — educated the upwardly mobile Roman Catholic middle class which provided many officers for the army.

Catholics also trained with Dublin University Officer Training Corps at Trinity College.

An example was Capt Hubert O’Connor, who studied at Clongowes and Trinity and was awarded a Military Cross for conspicuous bravery at the start of the Somme battle.

He was killed in the third Battle of Ypres in 1917.

It may be significant that he served in the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, and not in an Irish regiment.

As explained in my recent book, Irish Barristers in the Great War, published by Four Courts Press, it can be superficial to generalise about Protestant schools and colleges as being the only source of ‘officer material’.

Anthony P Quinn

Law Library

Four Courts

Dublin 7