Claremen and the First World War Exhibition

O’Dea, Daniel, Private, 1st Bn., Royal Dublin Fusiliers (also of South Irish Horse)

Missing in Action: 3rd April, 1918, age 19, from Knockmore, Kilmihil

Exhibits: framed and glazed memorial scroll, Victory Medal and British War Medal; Memorial Plaque.

When Private Daniel O’Dea from Knockmore, Kilmihil, was a young boy his father died and he was sent to the home of an uncle who subsequently raised him. In his teens O’Dea was refused money by his uncle to purchase a suit and in a fit of pique he enlisted with the South Irish Horse, a cavalry regiment founded only two decades earlier. In an undated handwritten letter which was not included in this exhibition, Private O’Dea wrote to his sister from his barracks in Cahir, County Tipperary and informed her that he was to be sent to Cork to be trained as infantry and that he had heard that his unit was to be attached to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. This subsequently occurred.

Private Patrick O’Dea’s was killed on the Somme during the German Spring Offensive that began on 21st March, 1918. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, his death occurred on 3rd April, 1918 . The Spring Offensive was intended to knock out the Allies before the arrival of fresh American troops, and led to the allies retreating all along the Western Front resulting in high casualties and the annihilation of the 16th (Irish) Division. O’Dea has no known grave and he is remembered at the Pozieres Memorial along with more that 14,000 missing from United Kingdom and South African Regiments.