Downey Revisited

Yet, having endured a living hell, the young Irishman died, blindfolded, on December 29, 1915, shot at dawn by a firing squad from his own division. They were acting under direct orders from an Irish commander who was later honoured by the Irish government. Now with his body buried in Greece, thousands of miles away from his native Limerick, the name of Private Patrick Joseph Downey does not appear on any memorial or cenotaph. He is not even listed in the official archives of British and Irish soldiers killed in the war.

For decades, along with the other 25 Irishmen executed by the British army during World War I for alleged cowardice, desertion of duty and disobedience, the name of Patrick Downey was expunged from history. 'As with over 300 other innocent British and Commonwealth soldiers, these Irishmen were brutally gunned down, not in the name of justice, but as a stupid, spiteful and shameful example to others,' says Peter Mulvaney, who is co-ordinating the Irish branch of the global Shot At Dawn campaign which is demanding an apology from the British government to the relatives of men executed during the First World War

As the campaign gathers pace in Ireland, the full details of the brief military career of Private Downey are finally coming together in a soon-to-be published book by Limerick author Pat McNamara. Even by the standards of the brutal treatment meted out by the British officer class to the raw and poorly trained recruits sent to the front, Downey's case is particularly heart-rending. According to British military archives, he was 19 years old when sentenced to death, but anecdotal evidence from local historians suggests he lied about his age to enlist and was probably just 16 or 17 when he joined the 5th Royal Munster Fusiliers . He later transferred to the 6th Leinster Regiment which was dispatched as part of the 10th Irish Division in the summer of 1915 for the suicidal assault at Gallipoli.

By the time the Allies finally abandoned their offensive in January 1916, with no ground gained, 250,000 men - including 3,411 from the 10th Irish - had been slaughtered on the beaches by Turkish artillery fire. Given the madness of Gallipoli, Patrick Downey must have been counting his blessings on September 29 when his division withdrew from Gallipoli and set sail for Salonika in Greece under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Bryan Mahon. In truth, though, the men were merely swapping one hell for another. Those who survived disease on the voyage found themselves thrown immediately into battle again - this time trench warfare. By November, morale among the exhausted and, in many cases, shell-shocked men had reached a new low. Fearful of a complete breakdown in discipline and even mutiny, the officers enforced harsh punishments for even minor indisciplines.

Downey was one of those who was sentenced to what was known as 'field punishment number one' for a series of minor misdemeanours. This involved being tied by the wrists and ankles - crucifixion style - to cartwheels for periods of two hours daily as well as performing heavy duties on starvation rations. One conscientious objector who survived the 'crucifixion' treatment later wrote that he was 'strained so tightly that I was unable to move a fraction of an inch... and the pain grew steadily until by the end of half an hour it seemed absolutely unendurable'. Downey's endurance finally broke when he was ordered one morning to pick his cap up from the mud while being tied to the cartwheel. He refused twice and, for his insolence, he was court-martialled on December 1 on the grounds of 'disobeying a lawful command in such a manner as to show wilful disobedience of authority given personally by his superior officer'.

His trial was a farce. Army regulations regarding the presence of a field officer to preside over a court martial were disregarded as 'none could be spared'. Downey had no legal representation and believed that by pleading guilty he would escape with a prison sentence. His plea was accepted by the military court, even though the British army had issued instructions commanding military courts to disregard guilty pleas. Downey's only plea for mitigation was that in civilian life he had never been in trouble. When the death sentence was pronounced by Captain Manseragh, who noted Downey's 'very bad' character, the young soldier said: 'That's a good joke. You let me enlist and then you bring me here and shoot me.'

Downey's sentence was referred to Lt. Gen Mahon, the commanding officer of British forces in Salonika. A career soldier, he had earned promotion after his heroic part in the relief of Mafeking during the Boer War. Originally from a long-established landed family in Galway, he decided against clemency for his fellow Irishman. 'Under normal circumstances, I would have hesitated to recommend that the capital sentence awarded be put into effect as a plea of guilty has erroneously been accepted,' he wrote. 'But the conditions of discipline ... is such as to render an exemplary punishment highly desirable. 'Between April 25 and December 31, 101 death sentences were handed down by courts martial in the British army's Mediterranean field of operations, all but three of which were commuted. Downey's case was one totally lacking in mercy. Lt. Gen Mahon's recommendation was rubber-stamped by General Munro. Downey's fate was sealed. At 8am on December 29, he was shot and became the first of five Irishmen executed during the First World War on a charge of disobedience. Lt. General Mahon retired to Ireland in 1921. He received the KCB in 1922 and was nominated to the first Senate of the Irish Free State in 1922. He died in Dublin in 1930.