One family's divided loyalties in war time

To mark the Centenary of Armistice Day 1918-2018, 'Gallipoli,The GPO and Flanders' by Michael Holohan will be performed on Sunday 18th November at 8pm in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Trim.

Drawing on the personal letters and diaries of both his paternal and maternal granduncles and the diary of a British soldier, the composer Michael Holohan has created a moving portrait as he takes you on a music and literary  journey, featuring the real life stories and eyewitness accounts of Francis and Thomas Holohan, Seosamh de Brún and Samuel Henry Lomas during the First World War 1914-18 and the Easter Rising in 1916.
The performers will include actor Barry McGovern, playwright and actor Donal O’Kelly,the RTE Contempo String Quartet, John Walsh trumpet, John McCrea, percussion and Michael Holohan, director and percussion.

This is the story of four brave men who played a direct part in a number of very significant events in world history between the years 1914-1918. 
 
Thomas Holohan  was a heavy artillery gunner on the bloody battlefields of France. Frank Holohan sailed the high seas in the First and Second World War; Seosamh de Brún and Samuel Lomas fought on opposite sides in the streets of Dublin during the Easter Rising in 1916.

Thomas Holohan was born in 1883 in Johnswell, Co. Kilkenny. He was the son of the local schoolteachers Michael and Annie Holohan. As a young man and apprentice, he worked in a spirit grocery in Kilkenny. During the First World War he enlisted in the British Army and served as a Gunner in France with the 122nd Heavy Battery, the Royal Garrison Artillery. He took part in some of the bloodiest battles of the War most notably Ypres, Messines, the Somme and the Passchendaele. His letters from the Front in 1917-1918 were written to my paternal grandfather Michael Holohan and addressed to the family home at Glenarm Ave, Drumcondra, Dublin. Michael  his brother and a civil servant, worked in the Telegraphy Department of the GPO in 1916 and was on his Easter holidays during the week of the Rising .Thomas, having survived such a brutal war, was unfortunately killed on the 1st May 1920 in a military accident whilst serving with The Royal Garrison Artillery in Hong Kong. He was buried by his comrades in St Michael’s Catholic Cemetery, Happy Valley, Hong Kong, China. His name has been recorded on the Kilkenny First World War Memorial Wall which was unveiled in 2018.
 
Frank Holohan was born in 1889 in Johnswell ( the same village as his older brother Thomas). During the First World War he served as a steward in the British Merchant Navy aboard the SS Southland. He was active as a medical volunteer and stretcher bearer on the Greek island of Lemnos during the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. His letters home are written to his sister Kathleen, nicknamed ‘Ciss’, and describe the horrors of the battle. In 1917, the SS Southland was torpedoed by a German submarine 100 miles off the Donegal coast. Frank survived the attack and was rescued from a lifeboat having spent three days adrift in the wild Atlantic Ocean. On the 2nd July 1940, during the Second World War, Frank as an assistant steward on board the prison ship the Arandora Star ( formerly a cruise ship),  was torpedoed for the second time in his career .This sequestered internment ship was attacked by a German U Boat 100 miles off Tory Island, Co. Donegal. Unluckily, he did not survive the attack and drowned at the age of 51, along with 700 Italian and German internees, British soldiers and the ship’s crew. Only 500 survived. His name is recorded on the Merchant Navy Memorial at Tower Hill in the centre of London and will be recorded in the near future on the newly planned  Kilkenny Second World War Memorial Wall.

Seosamh de Brún also known as Joseph Browne was born in Dublin on the the 3rd of July 1883, the eldest son of James Browne, Ballivor, Co. Meath and Jane McDonnell, Dublin. As Irish language enthusiasts, both Seosamh and my maternal grandfather John Patrick were involved in the Gaelic League in 1906. A carpenter by trade he was an active union member of The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. He joined The Irish Volunteers in 1913 and was a fully trained member of B Company, 2nd Battalion, The Dublin Brigade.
Seosamh  kept a personal diary during the year 1916 and had it with him in Jacobs Factory on Easter Monday, April 24th. It was a midget diary and measured only 3 inches by 2 ¼ wide. It contains a vivid account of Joe’s personal life, his efforts to seek employment, his involvement with James Connolly in the turbulent carpenters’ strike of April1916, his stormy relationship with the Volunteers and finally his narrative about Jacob’s garrison. So far, it is the only known diary written by a Volunteer during the Rising while under fire. At the surrender, in order to avoid certain imprisonment by the British forces, he disposed of his diary in Jacob’s factory and walked away disguised in civilian clothes.
Seosamh took an active part in the 50th Anniversary of the Easter Rising Commemorations in 1966. He died in Irishtown, Sandymount in 1968 and was given a funeral with full military honours.
 
Samuel Henry Lomas was born in November 1879 in the village of Tideswell, in England. He was 36 when he set sail from Liverpool, aboard the Royal Mail steamer Ulster, on the evening of Tuesday, April 25th, 1916. The ship was bound for Dún Laoghaire, known then as Kingstown, and for the next 14 days Company Sergeant Major Lomas of the Sherwood Foresters kept a diary of his time in Ireland.
Lomas was involved in some of the most intense fighting of Easter Week. He supervised the building of barricades across several important Dublin streets ( including Parnell Street). He led storming parties which broke into the buildings around Moore Street, discovered the body of the O’Rahilly and participated as senior non commissioned officer in the Rebellion’s first executions in Kilmainham Gaol, those of Pádraig Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Tom Clarke.
By the end of his stay in Ireland he had less than a year to live. He served at the Front in France, beginning on February the 26th 1917 and on April 27th he was killed near Cologne Farm in Picardy. With no known grave, he is commemorated on the Tideswell Memorial Cross and the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.

Michael Holohan says: "Three of these men were my granduncles and one a complete stranger from Tideswell in England .They were all ordinary working men, but in their own way they were idealists and made a significant contribution to their time. Until now their personal letters and diaries have been hidden from us for various reasons. I am grateful to Michael Holohan, my grandfather, for his hoarding habits. Through his little compulsions he preserved for the family the war letters of his brothers Thomas and Frank. In particular, I would like to thank Mick O’ Farrell, the historian who brought to light the diaries of my granduncle Seosamh de Brún and the British soldier Samuel Lomas. Historically, now is the right time to revisit these letters and diaries and to recount their unique stories."