This Monument has been erected by all Ranks of the 1st Bat. Irish Guards in grateful Remembrance of their Beloved Chaplain, Father Gwynn, who was with them on Active Service for nearly twelve months from Nov., 1914, until his death, and shared with unfailing devotion all their trials and hardships."
The wonder, indeed, is that many more Catholic chaplains have not been killed. Father James Stack, of the Redemptorist Order—a County Limerick man—had a narrow escape from being killed by German rifle fire as he was attending to a dying Irish soldier between the opposing lines. The soldier was heard in the British trenches calling for a priest. Father Stack crept out to him, heard his confession, anointed him, and lay by his side praying until he passed away. While he was engaged on this sublime errand of mercy the priest was fired on by the Germans, but he got back unhurt. He was mentioned in Sir John French's valedictory despatch. A dramatic story is also told of another dauntless Catholic chaplain. One bitter winter's night eight men left a British trench to bomb the Germans. None of them returned. Their comrades wore consumed with anxiety as to their fate. Were they prisoners, were they dead, or were they lying wounded in the mud and the slush? The Catholic chaplain of the battalion volunteered to go out in front and try to learn what had become of them. After some hesitation his request was granted. "Donning his surplice and with a crucifix in his hand the priest proceeded down one of the saps and climbed out into the open," writes a staff correspondent of the Central News at the Front. "With their eyes glued to periscopes, the British line watched him anxiously as he proceeded slowly towards the German lines. Not a shot was fired by the enemy. After a while the chaplain was seen to stop and bend down near the German wire entanglements. He knelt in prayer. Then with the same calm step he returned to his own lines. He had four identity discs in his hand, and reported that the Germans had held up four khaki caps on their rifles, indicating that the other four were prisoners in their hands."
Father J. Fahey, a Tipperary man, made a lasting reputation among the Dominion Forces in Gallipoli by his services as chaplain to the 11th Australian Battalion. The Archbishop of Perth (Australia) got a letter from an officer in Gallipoli which said: "You are to be congratulated for sending us such an admirable chaplain as Father Fahey. He is the idol of the 11th Battalion, and everyone, irrespective of creed, has a good word to say for him." Dr. McWhae, one of the medical officers, puts in a different way the estimation in which Father Fahey is held: "He is one of the finest fellows in the world, and everybody swears by him. He landed at Gallipoli with the covering party, and spends his time in the trenches." Before the troops left Lemnos Island for the first landing at Anzac on April 25th, 1915, the Brigadier went round and told the chaplains of all denominations that they could go aboard the hospital ships if they wished. Father Fahey and Father McMenamin, a chaplain with the New Zealand Forces, said they would go in the transports with the men and also accompany them into the trenches. And, sure enough, these two priests were the first of the chaplains in the firing line looking after their men. "The 'Padre,' as he is called by his battalion," writes the officer in his letter to the Archbishop of Perth, "fills in his spare time carrying up provisions to the men at the front, and helps the wounded back, and I can tell you he is not afraid to go where the bullets fall pretty thickly," Father Fahey has done more in the way of utilising his spare time—he has led the men in a charge against the Turkish entrenchments. On an occasion when all the officers had been killed or disabled he called on the remnants of the company, "Follow me, and though I have only a stick, you can give the Turks some Western Australian cold steel."
Father Fahey himself gives the following racy account of the discomforts which attended the discharge of his duties in Gallipoli:—
"I have had my clothes and boots off only once during the past month. I had a wash twice, and one shave, so I can assure you I do not look a thing of beauty. I am cultivating a beard, and in another month I expect to look as fierce as a Bedouin chief. Water is scarce; we only get enough to drink and cook, but none to wash; so we are not too clean. I have had several narrow escapes, so many, in fact, that I wonder why I am still alive. I had four bullets in my pack, one through a jam tin out of which I was eating, which spoiled the jam and made me very wild. One through my water-bottle; one through a tobacco-tin in my pocket; one took the epaulette off my tunic, and once I had nineteen shrapnel bullets through a waterproof sheet on which I was lying only a few minutes previously. I have lost count of the shells that nearly accounted for me; I hardly expect to get through the business alive, but seeing that I have been lucky so far I may."
The last I heard of Father Fahey was that he was lying wounded in an hospital at Malta. Writing of his work as a priest, he says: "I have heard confessions in all kinds of weird places, with the shrapnel bursting overhead and bullets whizzing around. I go along the trenches every day in case anyone might want to see me. It is all so strange and uncanny. Passing along the trenches, a soldier with his rifle through a loophole and one eye on the enemy may call me to hear his confession; while it is being done the bullets are plopping into the sandbags of the parapet a few inches away. It is consoling and satisfactory work, if a little dangerous."
The part of the chaplain's work that is most harrowing to him personally, but most consoling to those whom he serves, is that of ministering to the wounded at the hospital clearing stations nearest to the firing line. "Sometimes when I hold them up on the stretcher to try to get them to take a drink," writes Father L.J. Stafford, one of the chaplains to the 10th Irish Division in Gallipoli, "I think that Christ must have foreseen this awful slaughter and borne it in His Passion as part of the sorrows of mankind, and I try to associate myself with the feelings of His Virgin Mother." The acts and the thoughts of the priest blend together in perfect harmony like the words and music of an inspired hymn to the Almighty. Well might Father Stafford add: "I am in great peril, but doing my duty fearlessly. Could man wish for more?"
As the priest kneels down by these dying Irish youths he receives many last messages to send to the loved ones at home, a sacred trust which he is most scrupulous faithfully to discharge. There are thousands of mothers in Ireland grieving for darling sons lying mouldering in Flanders, France, and Gallipoli. If anything can ease the gnawing pain at the heart of these bereaved mothers, it surely must be the receipt of one of those beautifully sympathetic and healing letters which they receive from the Irish Catholic chaplains. I have had the privilege of reading numbers of them, and happily in none have I come upon any heroics about the nobility of the youth's self-sacrifice and the grandeur of the cause for which he died. To the Irish Catholic mother such phrases bring no consolation. His death tells her that her son has done his duty; that is enough; and her sole concern is with his eternal salvation. It is on this point that the chaplain is at pains to reassure her.
"I saw him last at 7.30 p.m. on July 14th. He was very exhausted, and I could see that he would not last long. He tried to give me his mother's address, but failed. All he could say was: 'Not weep. With God.' I told him I should tell his mother not to weep because he would be with God, and he shook his head in consent. He then said: 'Good-bye, Father. God bless you.'" So does Father Felix Couturier, O.P., describe the death in hospital at Alexandria of Lance-Corporal Wilkerson, 7th Dublin Fusiliers, wounded at Gallipoli. Then there is the consoling letter of Father O'Herlihy, chaplain in Egypt, to Mrs. Kelleher, Cork, telling of the death of her son, Patrick, a private in the 1st Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers, also wounded in Gallipoli. Here is an extract from it:—
"I've seen many in pain and suffering since the war began, but few have I seen to bear it all so willingly and so patiently as your son, Paddy; for God and His Blessed Mother were helping him a lot. About, a week after the operation his sufferings increased, and on Sunday morning last, when I said Holy Mass at the hospital, he again asked me to bring him Holy Communion, as he was confined to bed. You could see the happiness in his features, when Our Blessed Lord came to him again to give him new strength and grace to bear up. He said to me after: 'Father, every time you'll say Holy Mass here, you will bring me Holy Communion again, won't you? I don't like to trouble you, but I long so much to receive.' Poor Paddy! He was such a good boy! I know, dear Mrs. Kelleher, you have long since put your son in God's holy hands, leaving him entirely to God. And God and Mary will now, I know, reward you and give you help and grace to bear for the love of them the sorrowful news it's my hard lot to be the first to send you, perhaps. Your poor Paddy passed away to the God whom he loved so much, and for whom he bore all so patiently. Don't fear for Paddy. He is happy now, poor lad, after many sufferings."