Joseph was born in Shantalla in Galway City on the 8th of July in 1881. His father Bernard J.Phillips was the Head Book Keeper in McDonagh’s Merchants Road. His mother Teresa Phillips was originally from Dublin. They had a large family. In 1899 Joseph and his father fell out. Joseph decided to leave home and join the Connacht Rangers in Renmore Barracks. The family were then living in Kilcorrey, quite near Nile Lodge.
Joseph left a large family Mother & Father, five sisters and one brother behind him. He walked through Galway City and by the Railway Station, over The Lough Atalia Bridge to the Barracks in Renmore. After a relatively short training period, Joseph was sent to fight in The Boer War. He embarked from Queenstown(Cobh) to South Africa. It was a costly war, but Joseph was mentioned in dispatches and promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal. He also received a “Mounted Infantry Certificate”.
On October 1, 1901, he was awarded the Cape Colony and Orange Free State Medals. The following year he returned home and spent several years recruiting. He was then posted to India. He was garrisoned in Dagshai and met a girl called Frances Young. He fell in love and they got married at the church in Poona. They both went to her parent’s home up on Mayo Road to celebrate their wedding. Nobody has been able to explain where the name Mayo Road came from.
The firstborn was Bernie followed by Leo a year later. Joseph was again transferred, this time back to Galway with his wife and two boy sons. Myra their first daughter was born in Renmore Barracks in 1913 and she was Baptised in the Church outside the Barracks on the Renmore Road.
Joseph was then transferred to Kinsale where his second daughter Phyllis was born in 1915 and their youngest Alby was born in 1917.
Joseph was then transferred to World War One in France. His wife Frances decided to bring her five children back to Galway to be near her husband’s family. Joseph in the meantime was very busy army-wise and after a short while, now being a Sergeant Major, was ordered to bring his men to the frontline. He and his men advanced, but the Generals changed their minds and issued instructions for the entire front line to withdraw. The instructions to withdraw never reached Joseph, so he and his men continued to advance.
Because the instructions had reached the troops on either side of them, Joseph and his men were isolated. They had no support on either side of their battalion and were jutting out in complete isolation. The enemy, the German troops surrounded Joseph and his men and they were all killed in the Kaiser’s Battle also known as the Ludendorff Offensive. It was the Spring Offensive along the Western Front beginning on 21st March 1918 when Joseph was killed. Joseph and his men were all buried in a mass grave by the Germans. It was only when the war ended that year that the Germans gave the information on the mass burial did the Connacht Rangers learn what had happened and Joseph and his men’s bodies were found.
In the meantime, Frances had not heard from Joseph for some 18 months and she wrote letters to so many organizations in London enquiring about Joseph’s wellbeing. She got letters from: The Connacht Rangers, The British Red Cross and Order of St. John, The War Office, and The Irish Women’s Association. All stated that they had no information on where or what happened to Joseph Phillips but wished her the best and hoped she would have good news shortly.
The sad news of Joseph’s death eventually came to her. In the meantime, she was living with her children in Palmyra Avenue, Galway. She had to earn some money, so she played the piano for The Silent Movies in The Town Hall.
In 1920 she got the English system to bring her and her five children back to Quetta in India where she was born and where her family lived. She got married again in 1923 to Sidney Barby. In those days there were substantial grants given to single male men, who married widows of the First World War. But they had no responsibility for their wives’ children. The five children were sent away to boarding schools in Agra some 750 miles away. The boys’ Bernard, Leo & Alby were schooled by the Capuchin Fathers and the girls Myra & Phyllis were schooled by the Jesus & Mary Nuns.
They did not see their Mother for six years. During that time Bernard got on the undercarriage of a train going to Quetta to see his mother, but when he arrived his mother put him back on the train to Agra. She had several more children at that stage and was a very busy woman.
In 1929 their boarding school days ended. Their Mother Francis had five more children in the meantime and her then-husband Sydney Barby was finished his army duty in India.
Frances went to where the offspring of her first family were in Agra. Bernard & Leo as they had not seen her for so long would not have anything to do with her and went off and joined the English Army in India.
In 1930 Myra, Phyllis and their brother Alby arrived in England with their mother Francis and step-father Sidney Barby. Myra & Phyllis were in a Barracks in Liverpool for about six months. In the meantime, Alby had been walking down the street and saw a sign: Why not be a Boy Soldier, but you must be 15 years of age. He was 13 and suddenly became 15 and joined the English Army.
Francis in the meantime got in touch with her first husband’s family in Galway and arranged that Myra and Phyllis would go to Galway and live with their Granny and their Aunts. Myra was 16 & Phyllis was 14 when they arrived in Galway. They met their Granny Teresa Phillips and Aunts Nancy, Florrie, Amy, Lillie, Mary & Violet. They also met their Uncle Leo. Their Granny Teresa lived on Upper Canal Road with some of the aunts. Myra & Phyllis were given a bedroom in what was to become the only home they knew in their lives up till then. They started whole new happy lives in peace and happiness. They were introduced to girls of their own age by their aunts and built great relationships. They went to the Tech in Dominick St. and spent several years there. When finished in the Tech they both got jobs. Myra in Kineens, Eyre Square and Phyllis in Hunter’s Pram Factory in Fishery’s Field. Myra was introduced in The Bank of Ireland, Eyre Square to Jim Faulkner by Michael Grealy who lived in Lenaboy Park. Myra went regularly to the bank on behalf of the Kineens. Myra & Jim Faulkner got married and settled in Salthill and had six children: Ivor, Leola, Columba, Noel, Gerard & Geraldine (twins). Phyllis in the meantime had lost her job in Hunter’s Pram Factory, which was given to Ted Hunter’s nephew. who lost his job in Dublin. She was told by her work colleague Nellie Egan that, there was a job going in Salthill. Nellie’s sister Kitty Farrell worked in Aylwards Garage in Lower Salthill and she knew where the job was. Phyllis went to where Kitty worked and Kitty brought her into the building next store where Stewarts the Builders were based. They had the job and Phyllis got it. A short while there she met Ned Ashe who also worked there. They subsequently got married. After a while, they settled in Salthill, in close proximity to the Bal i.e. The Ballinasloe House. and had five children: Sean, Eamonn, Collette, Sheila and Declan who all grew up in Salthill. Both families living in Salthill got to know each other very well and had many a good time together.
Joseph Phillips Poem
The six of us from Connaught walked through in single file,
The gateway to the graveyard laid out in rigid style,
We had come to see the grave of he, from Galway, who had died,
In a war of many battles, with his comrades by his side.
He had joined the Connaught Rangers in Eighteen Ninety Nine,
When he’d left his home in Galway and walked along the line,
Over Lough Atalia to The Barracks in Renmore,
He, his Dad had differed; so home he went no more.
He then went to South Africa, to fight against The Boers,
Won medals and promotion and peace it was restored,
Back again to Ireland, Boyle and many other places,
Then off again to foreign lands India and strange faces.
He met a girl in Dagshai, fell in love and they got married,
At the church in Poona from whence both of them were carried,
To her home up on the Mayo Road, where she, her family dwelt,
There they celebrated, she was English, he was Celt.
The first born, was a boy called Bernie, followed by Leo,
Joseph was again transferred and with him both did go,
To Galway, it’s his own hometown, standing by The Bay,
For her it was another land, of many different ways.
Myra their first daughter was in nineteen thirteen born,
In Renmore Barracks and her brothers blew an army horn,
Next to come was Phyllis two years later in Kinsale,
Joseph and his wife Frances were thrilled and oh so hale.
In nineteen seventeen, Alby their very last arrived,
They’re Mother and her children for several years did thrive,
But Joseph had to leave them all and head away to France,
Where he told his men around him, that soon they would advance.
He was then a Sergeant Major near the Battle at the Somme,
When he got an urgent message to the front line troops must come,
The Generals, changed the message, the men must now withdraw,
But the change it never reached them and it Joseph never saw.
He and his men went forward and onward further still,
But the enemy were waiting, he and many they did kill,
His grave is in Ste. Emilie a short distance from Peronne,
To where, the six of us from Connaught had first come.
Copyright Sean Ashe, November 09 “Joseph Phillips Poem”