 is a lot of talks. There's talks from the archaeology of the county to pivotal events of the decade of centenaries. And one of the talks is actually on this Saturday. It's Judith McCarthy who's the creator at the museum, chatting about stories of casualties and survivors in the First World War. Her talk is called From Behind the Walls. And there's one of three talks and we'll get to the other two in just a moment. But Judith is with me now in the studio. Good afternoon Judith. Good afternoon John. Thanks for coming in and tell us a little bit more about in general what your talk is about. Okay well as you know we've done a huge amount of research in the museum in telling the stories of Donegal in the First World War. We've done exhibitions, we've run events and we also published the fifth edition of the Donegal Book of Honor a few years ago. And in doing this research we've uncovered stories not just of those who died during the war but also those who survived but who were also casualties. Particularly then I focused on doing some research into those who passed through the workhouse system and also those who ended up in what was then known as the Donegal District Lunatic Asylum. Why such a focus on World War I? Is it that you know these stories need to have a light shone on them? Yes basically so when we started our research probably about 20 years ago now the stories were not really known about. It was at a time when people were kind of still very hesitant about sharing stories of their loved ones from that period because there was still that leftover of you know we don't really want to talk about the fact that people from our family were involved fighting for the British in the First World War. That has changed dramatically in the last 20 years so those stories have come to light but as is always the case there's always more information on those that died and that's understandable and those who survived continue to live their lives you know suffering the consequences of what happened to them during the First World War. Okay so in the case of those who died there'll be military records about especially once they went into service and how they died and that'll be well documented. Those that survived could have gone into some sort of a system and the record keeping just wouldn't have been. And also when a soldier died during the war so they would have a lot of the time got a Commonwealth war grave you know so they're recognized that way there's a memorial to them sometimes if their bodies weren't recovered their name is on a memorial and so it's easier to track them and to trace them but those who survived for many of them they continue to live with the trauma after the war and their records are a little bit harder to find unless you go looking for them. Yeah okay and in the fullness of time now we now understand the effects that Shellshock and war and the horrors of war I would have had on these young men and they had to suffer the consequences. Give us a couple of examples. Okay well in my talk I'm going to be talking about some of those who died during the war and just stories about them how we've connected them to each other but also stories of some of those who survived. So for instance there were two brothers Ezekiel and Andrew Smith and they were from the convoy area. They were the sons of Thomas and Mary Smith. They both died on the first day of the Battle of Assam, 1st of July 1916. They were fighting with the Royal Enoskill and Fusiliers. Young men. Very young. One was 23, the other was 25. So but what I discovered in my research is that there was another soldier called Robert Sheldon who was from Rafoe and he served with the South African infantry and he had actually been served in South Africa prior to the war so he had been a kind of you know already a soldier prior to the First World War and when I found him in the 1911 census he was living in Rafoe with his mother Fanny but one of the servants in the home was Ezekiel Smith at 18. So you find that connection? Yes I think what happened and I mean I'm just using my imagination a little bit. They were influenced? Yes absolutely of course they were so there was this soldier who had previously served in South Africa you know probably sharing stories of what it was like not they didn't talk about the bad stuff they never talked about how horrible it was just sharing stories of comradeship and you know we were fighting for a good cause and these young men were influenced I have no doubt they were influenced by that and then enlisted themselves and all ended up dead at the end of the war and it probably wouldn't have been a horror on the scale of the First World War. Absolutely not exactly so you know the fighting there was never anything prior to that on the scale of what happened in the First World War it just there is absolutely no comparison you did not have the trench warfare you did not have sort of equipment that they had and developed during the First World War so these young men wouldn't have had any idea what to expect and nor did nor did Robert Sheldon himself he didn't know what to expect when he enlisted back enlisted again in the First World War and went off to fight and they all ended up dying so that's just one story it's another young man Joseph Brogan we I found I was looking in the records of the workhouses in Donegal they're all online actually the original workhouse records a lot of them are in the Donegal Archives but they are also online on Find My Past which you can get free access through the library service okay some of these men would have come back from war and and and rather than be able to rely on a on a decent pension they ended up in the workhouse well in some cases in this case of this particular gentleman he actually was in the workhouse during the war so he came home probably on furlough or on leave at the time and we find him in the records of the Donegal town workhouse because he was from the Donegal area so he entered the workhouse on the 25th of April 1916 and in the indoor admission records he's listed it as either aged or in firm now he wasn't aged he was a young man so he had obviously been injured at some stage and was listed as being in firm but he wasn't injured sufficiently that had put him out of the fighting he was obviously injured there's no record of what injury he received those records don't exist but he obviously as the listing says aged and in firm now people that ended up in the workhouse my understanding was that it was that just they couldn't afford to keep themselves and and ended up there sometimes that was that was certainly the case in the sort of early years of the workhouse in the late late 19th century when the workhouse is first opened in the kind of early 20th century we have to remember that there wasn't really a very good healthcare system in Ireland at the time and the workhouses had infirmaries so sometimes those gaps yes people ended up in the workhouse because they were ill you get people with fevers with you know influenza scarlet fever and in this case of Joseph and again we have to use our imaginations a little bit here because the records can only tell you so much that he passes through the workhouse between the 25th of April and the 8th of May 1916 yes and he's listed as being in firm so probably had been injured maybe not fully recovered spent a little bit of time in the workhouse just to kind of get himself back on his feet again but he's also in the county Dunningall book of honour so Joseph was part of the first battalion of the Royal Innosgill and Fusiliers and he died on the 16th of November 1916 so only a number of months after he left Dunningall as I said he was probably here maybe having been injured resting up back again back to the front again and killed within a few months of him being in the workhouse and and I noticed that one of the case studies is a private LP why is it private LP what's what's the full name well unfortunately I can't tell you his full name because private LP I found his records in the Dunningall district lunatic asylum and we wanted to keep them anonymous because the families are probably still living in Dunningall and these men deserve although they their stories deserve to be told equally it's it's a hundred years ago it's only a hundred years ago and there is there is confidentiality issues around the records associated with the asylum again they are in the care of the Dunningall archives and they have very specific access policy relating to how you can access the records it's called the Dunningall district lunatic asylum it would have been the closest equivalent to a psychiatric hospital absolutely well it eventually became St Cornwall psychiatric hospital it's on the same it's that's the site of it so it started off life as Dunningall district lunatic asylum opened in around the 1850s then became Chair Cornwall mental hospital and then became St Cornwall's psychiatric hospital so he was admitted into Dunningall district lunatic asylum in around November of 1919 from Belfast War Hospital which was also a place where soldiers went when they had psychiatric issues he was described as having chronic mania and delusions slight paralysis the cause of which they said was the stress of campaign stress of the war and the duration was two years and two months and he had been sent in under an army act of 1890 1881 when I looked for him then in the records that exist that you can find for the soldiers from the first world war I found a record it's known as the silver war badge it was awarded to soldiers who were injured during the war and what it says is that he enlisted in 1915 served overseas and then was discharged in November of 1919 considered no longer physically fit for war service so your your stories will be about those who served and died and those who served and survived and what became of them after that and because from Dunningall yeah subsequently LP as I said he was admitted into Dunningall district lunatic asylum in 1919 and he subsequently died there in 1941 oh that's a long yeah so he was in the hospital I would say from 1919 to 1941 all right the the talk is a Saturday afternoon at two o'clock at the Dunningall County Museum and then the the other talk there's two other talks as well one of them is next week next Thursday to mark international museums day yes that's right and we have Jane O'Shaughnessy from the National Monument Service she's an archaeologist and she's going to come up and she's going to talk to us about recent discoveries archaeological discoveries in Dunningall okay so if you fancy a bit of ancient history I weigh out a bit of digging about you never know what you might find then the Jane Jane will open your eyes and the final talk then is the the Wednesday 24th yeah and that is with Dr. Neve Brennan yeah that's Neve she's the county archivist and she's going to talk about the Irish grants committee which existed towards the end of the sort of war of independence civil war period and compensated people who had suffered either through incidences that happened either personally themselves or to their property and so she's going to be telling some of the stories of people from Dunningall who were compensated through the Irish grants committee okay well great series of talks and those details online I assume yes they'll be on you can find them either on our Facebook page or on our website okay Judas thank you thank you