Richard Edward Burke, class '10

Richard standing on extreme right, Dublin 1916

Richard was born in Green Lane, Dingle in April 1893, He was the son of Edward Burke, manager of the National Bank and Joanna Scanlon, the daughter of a hotel keeper in the town. The family moved to Killorglin, from whence he came to Knock, and later to Kilrush, County Clare where Richard was employed as a bank clerk when he was just 17 years old.

With the outbreak of the First World War, he signed up with the 3rd Royal Irish Regiment, a unit which drew most of its recruits from the counties of Wexford, Waterford, Tipperary and Kilkenny. He joined up to fight the Germans but initially ended up fighting his fellow Irishmen on the streets of Dublin, for it was his unit which retook the GPO during the Easter Rising.

The regimental historian of the Royal Irish Regiment mentions how the unit captured the green flag with the words ‘Irish Republic’ which had flown from the corner of the GPO during the Rising. The above photograph captures the regimental officers with their war trophy in front of the Parnell monument. Richard is standing on the extreme right, but he is not the only past man in the photo, for his commanding officer was none other than Major Jack Morrogh, class '99 at Knock. So what odds would you have got on that - two Knock men serving in a British Army unit on the streets of Dublin in a seminal moment in Irish history.

The flag ended up in the Imperial War Museum in London but was returned to Ireland for the 50th anniversary of the Rising in 1966.

Later that year Richard was sent to the Western Front and at the age of 24 was awarded a bravery certificate for his actions at Ginchy. It was reported in the press at the time that "Capt. Burke distinguished himself on the 9th Sept. at Ginchy, being the only officer left out of his company" (14 Nov 1916). Wounded in a trench raid at Locre in April 1917, he returned to his unit in time to take part in the historic Battle of Messines. He later won a Military Cross in 1917 for continuing to lead his men despite being wounded in battle at Wijtschate.

After the war, Richard returned to Dublin and became a co-ordinator of the Soldiers and Sailors Land Trust which was set-up to provide housing for ex-servicemen. During the 1920s and 1930s the Trust provided over 4,000 houses throughout Ireland.

He died in 1975, aged 83, but is not forgotten for on Friday, 21st October 2016 the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Brendan Carr, launched the exhibition ‘Dublin Remembers: Stories from the Somme’ in Dublin City Library and Archive in Pearse Street and Richard features prominently.

His daughter Muriel, age 90, attended as did Declan Kettle, grand-nephew of Tom Kettle and Tom Burke, chairman of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association.

The Lord Mayor of Dublin commented:

The 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme has been marked by a wide range of official and unofficial events throughout Ireland, demonstrating the increased awareness of the significance of the Somme to the people of the whole island of Ireland. I commend Dublin City Library and Archive for this thought-provoking exhibition which personalises the loss and hardship endured by Irish-men and their families.

The Battle of the Somme was a key Allied offensive during World War I. It began on 1st July 1916 and when it ended 141 days later over one million men had been killed or injured. This included the loss of over 3,500 Irish born soldiers. The exhibition focuses on personal stories of individual Irish men who fought at the Somme between July and November 1916, mainly serving with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Some were killed, others injured, and even those who survived unscathed returned to an Ireland which was radically different following the Easter Rising in April 1916.

The exhibition includes photographs, medals, uniforms, documents and other original artefacts from that period. Audio recordings from selected letters and diaries detail first-hand accounts of life in the trenches of the Somme, whilst interview footage, courtesy of RTE Archives, provides further eye-witness accounts of the horrors and tragedy of this bloody conflict. The exhibition also considers what public reaction to the Battle of the Somme was like in Dublin in 1916, and how the Somme has been commemorated in Ireland over the past 100 years.

The exhibition runs from Saturday 22 October to Friday 23 December and is most deserving of your support, and if you make it down to Pearse St., then do doff your cap in memory of fellow past man, Capt. Richard Edward Burke, class '10.