Claremen and the First World War Exhibition

Mahony, John, Private, 8th Bn, Royal Munster Fusiliers

Killed in Action: 29th July, 1916

Exhibit: two homemade laminated memorials including a handwritten biography; laminated memorial cards.

Private John Mahony was born on 16th April, 1891 in Ennis and in 1915 enlisted in Limerick with the 8th Battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers, a service battalion formed in October 1914. He married Bridget Moriarty, as of Old Mill Street, on 4th August, 1915 at Ennis Cathedral and ten days later he departed to Fermoy to rejoin his unit. The 8th Battalion was transferred to England in September and deployed to the Western Front on 20th December.

Almost a year after his wedding 29th July 1916, Private John Mahony was killed in action in France. According to his family he was due to return home on leave a week later. Bridget’s brother, who was also a member of the 8th Battalion, returned home to his sister with the news that her husband had been shot by a sniper. Bridget, who had become a widow at 22 years old, never recovered from the loss of her husband and never remarried. She turned her home into a shrine to her husband, adorning the walls with photos and paintings of Private Mahony and keeping the postcards her husband had sent her from France until her death in 1972. Sadly she never got to visit his grave at Mazingarbe Communal Cemetary Extention.