An Irish Chaplain in the First World War

By Anonymous -

Reposted from Costing Not Less Than Everything - for Remembrance Day



“Prayer…..more than anything else consoles me. And every fellow is the same. So the war has been the cause of making us all an army of saints.” 

“On the lonely, dark road-side…..lit up now and then by flashes from our own or German flares, rose to Heaven the voices of 800 men singing that glorious hymn, ‘Hail, Queen of Heaven.’ There were no ribald jests or courage buoyed up by alcohol; none of the fanciful pictures which imagination conjures up of soldiers going to a desperate charge. No, there were brave hearts without fear, only hoping that God would bring them through, and if the end came – well it was only a little shortening of the allotted span. Every man had his rosary beads out, reciting the prayers in response to Father Gleeson, just as if at the Confraternity at home, instead of having to face death in a thousand hideous forces the following morning.”

Words of Father Gleeson’s altar server in World War One, Sergeant-Major J. T, Leahy, of Monkstown, County Cork -  from the Cork Examiner, May 10, 1918.


Father Francis Gleeson was born in 1884 in Tipperary. On the outbreak of war, he volunteered for service and was appointed chaplain to the Royal Munster Fusiliers serving in Western France. Giving aid and comfort to the soldiers, writing letters to bereaved families (each letter ending with the words ‘a great sacrifice’) and making handmade crosses for the burials he conducted, he was known for his kindness and attention to the troops. At one time he took command of the Regiment when the officers were incapacitated. On another occasion, he celebrated Christmas Day Mass in a trench on the front line. Of his service to the men, one of them said: “He’s a warrior and no mistake. There’s no man at the Front more brave or cooler. Why, it is in the hottest place up in the firing line he do be to give comfort to the boys that are dying.” 

He famously gave the 800 men of the Regiment a general absolution before the Battle of Aubers Ridge, while still on horseback. Most of the men were mown down by machine-gun fire in the first few yards.

Here are his words inscribed on a tablet at the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Belgium:




More information can be found here and here.

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