Ulster family at war: Father and three sons fought in WWI

Samuel McNally from Belfast’s Shankill Road went to war with his sons William, David and James, all of whom sustained front line injuries yet returned home to tell the tale.

Samuel served in France with the 9th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (Ulster Division), David served with the 5th Battalion Royal Irish Lancers and then the Machine Gun Corps, William was a sergeant with 6th Royal Irish Rifles, while James served 17th (Reserve) Battalion Royal Irish Rifles.

David’s son George, 82, said: “My uncle William was wounded at the Dardanelles for the second time and uncle Jim, who was gassed in the trenches, recovered, but had lung problems for the rest of his life when he returned to live in Belfast. My father was wounded twice and after recovering from a shrapnel wound to his left thigh was due to return to the frontline on Armistice Day 1918.

“He went to war with his horse, lance and sabre but even the most derring-do cavalry officers soon realised that trench warfare was no place for cavalry charges.

“He was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps and not to an over the top infantry battalion where he most probably would have lost his life.”

When David came home after the war he joined the Royal Irish Constabulary in Enniskillen which later became the RUC.

George said: “At one stage he was a courier for the RIC. He would have travelled in plain clothes on trains throughout Ireland carrying dispatches to Dublin Castle and he used to sit with his Webley revolver under a raincoat in his lap because RIC members had been previously hauled off the train and shot by the IRA.

“When he joined the RUC he was posted to Rosemount Station in Londonderry. He saw the start of the Troubles though fortunately he had reached retirement age.”

He added: “When my grandfather, my father and his brothers came home from the war they thought they’d seen the last of the conflict.

“All the time during my father’s life there was violence, along with many of his contemporaries. Many of our current generations don’t realise what some of their forefathers experienced.

“My father came from a working-class background, his father worked in the shipyard on the Titanic. There was no future, that was one of the reason why he joined up. The only time he slept in a single bed was when he joined the Army.

“He was a clever man, but he got no chance at education. He was determined that our family – there were eight of us – were not going into life without education. We’ve a lot to be thankful for. Most of us went through higher education.”

George went on to become a teacher and principal at home in NI and further afield in Zambia and Botswana.