Conor Maguire was a twenty-six-year old clerk for the Smardon Shoe Company, living at home, when he enlisted with Montreal’s 199th Battalion, known as the Duchess of Connaught’s Own Irish Rangers, on April 19, 1916, just one week before the Easter Uprising in Dublin.
The Rangers originally formed for home defense, not to fight overseas, but developments in Ireland and Canadian response to the war in Europe had an impact on the Montreal Irish community’s involvement in the war effort. In Ireland, the campaign for Home Rule was suspended, and the Irish Parliamentary Party urged men in Ireland to enlist. Although Irish Republicanism in Ireland expressed German sympathies, Irish organizations in Montreal, including the Republican-leaning Ancient Order of Hibernians, pledged loyalty to Britain and the war effort. Conscription was opposed in Ireland, and ultimately only law in Ulster. Amid the conscription controversy in Ireland, when the loyalty of Irish Canadians was in question, Montreal’s Irish Canadian Rangers raised its own battalion for the CEF. Montreal lawyer Henry “Flip” Trihey, a native of Griffintown, was named its commanding officer. Flip’s father, Tom, had played on the champion Shamrocks lacrosse team with Conor’s father CJ (“Con”), who would have known Flip, since they were both leaders of the Shamrock Athletic Association, which sponsored both hockey and lacrosse teams. Trihey’s name was printed on all of the recruiting posters, and a special “Sportsman’s Company” was raised, drawn from local lacrosse, track and hockey enthusiasts. Conor, a lacrosse player like his father, no doubt signed up in the sporting spirit.
General recruiting for the Rangers began in the spring of 1916. The Rangers were conceived as a non-sectarian battalion, and the theme of the recruitment drive was unity among all Irishmen in Canada. A recruiting posters featured a map of Ireland, proclaiming “All in One.” We can assume his father, Con, supported Conor’s enlisting with the Rangers. Con was the night editor of the Montreal Gazette and a Gazette editorial proclaimed “the Irish Rangers were the Canadian exemplification of this new United Ireland.” 1
Recruitment proved to be challenging, not the least because it coincided with the Easter Uprising. The low pay offered to enlisting men was perhaps the bigger factor, as it was not enough to lure any breadwinners. Finally, the general unhealthy environment of working-class Montreal, with its dirt and diseases, meant that many men failed the physical. In the end, the 199th was not entirely Irish, and included some Protestants, francophones, and even four Jews. Recruits from Griffintown were overwhelmingly, but not entirely, Irish.2
At a time when many recruits were being turned away for not being healthy or ready for service, Conor was fit enough. He was tall and healthy, but very skinny (at 5’ 11” he was only 125 pounds) and played for the Shamrocks Lacrosse team, like his father.
In August 1916, the 199th acquired a patron in the form of the wife of Canada’s Governor General, Prince Arthur, third son of Queen Victoria, and Duke of Connaught. Ironically their patron Margaret Louise, the Duchess of Connaught, was Prussian royalty. For its shortlived existence, the 199th battalion was known as the “Duchess of Connaught’s Irish Canadian Rangers.”
The Rangers left Canada in December and arrived in Liverpool after spending Christmas at sea. The Rangers were granted a two-month tour of Ireland to attract other recruits to “take the King’s shilling.” Conor was the first Maguire to return to Ireland since his grandfather John and family left in 1864.
Shortly after the Irish tour, the Rangers lost their patron with the death of the Duchess. No sooner had they arrived in Camp Witley, in Surrey, than their leaders were informed that the battalion would be disbanded and used for reinforcements. No real reason was given. It was alleged that all recently formed regiments were to be similarly disbanded. We can imagine the unease surrounding what several hundred colonial Irishmen with guns could do if the situation in Ireland intensified.
Conor spent the first months of 1917 at Camp Witley, and was then transferred to Shoreham, Sussex, where he was part of the 23rd reserve battalion, shipping to France with the 24th Canadian Battalion, known as the Victoria Rifles, in May, thereby missing the carnage at Vimy Ridge in April.
In July 1917, Canadian infantry near Lens, Pas de Calais, were making preparations for what would be the Battle of Hill 70. Private Conor Maguire was with the infantrymen passing through a hellscape of deserted mine workings, slurries, slag heaps and bombed out villages. On July 26th, last orders were issued setting July 30th as the day of the attack, which was intended as a diversion from the Flanders Offensive. Heavy rains reduced the area to a swamp, however, preventing reconnaissance or wire cutting. The attack was postponed and bombardment continued into August, when the battle began.
Conor took cover in a cellar while walking in a village under bombardment on July 30th. He had the good luck to have the house fall on him. It probably saved his life. He missed the Battle of Hill 70, which claimed the lives of 1500 Canadians, many to newly invented mustard gas. The Gazette story claimed he wasn't badly hurt, but in fact he spent the next five months in hospital and missed the battle of Passchendaele, which killed 70,000 men.
In the fall of 1917, as Conor recovered in a military hospital in Normandy, the possibility of a united Ireland under Home Rule disappeared with the election of Sinn Fein.
Canadians also went to the polls for the national parliamentary election that fall. One of the main issues of this election was the introduction of general conscription in Canada. The Gazette claimed that their polling analysis confirmed that the Irish of St. Ann’s ward as well as elsewhere in Montreal voted overwhelmingly for candidates supporting conscription, proving at last that Irish Canadians had truly become Canadians first.3
Conor came home alive in 1919, with all four limbs intact, but with a case of PTSD, no doubt brought on by the stress and trauma of combat, and probably his injuries as well. For 3 years of his life, months of pain, and the horror of trench warfare, he was paid $20 a month, which he sent home to his sister, Mamie.
Special thanks to the blog www.laststandonzombieisland.com for the rich detail on the Rangers.
https://laststandonzombieisland.com/2023/02/02/the-irish-rangers-of-montreal/
The Montreal Gazette, April 14, 1916
John Michael Barlow, “The House of the Irish": Irishness, History, and Memory in Griffintown, Montreal, 1868-2009.” Dissertation, Concordia University, 2009.
Robin Burns, "The Montreal Irish and the Great War," CCHA Historical Studies, 52(1985), 67-81