Grandniece seeks information on Tipperary World War 1 hero who turned up alive at his own wake

Caption: Retired journalist Barbara Baker who is seeking information on her late granduncle Patrick O'Brien from Coleraine, Dualla, who served in the Connaught Rangers during World War 1. 

The grandniece of a Dualla man who turned up alive and well at his own wake in 1916 as his family grieved his death in World War I, is looking for information on his life after his return from the war.

Barbara Baker, a 70-year-old retired journalist from Marden, Hertfordshire, said she would love to know about the life of her granduncle Patrick O’Brien from Coleraine, Dualla, after his Lazarus-like appearance at his own wake to the utter shock and delight of his grieving family.

“Did he marry? Did he have children? Did he work? Where did he live? When did he die?  You might imagine all these things are readily available in the archives but I’ve been searching for years and cannot find him.  Maybe one of your readers can help?” she told The Nationalist.

Barbara’s aunt Norah (Patrick’s niece) told her the story of Patrick’s reported death in action in the Persian Gulf in 1916 while serving in the British Army and his subsequent miraculous appearance at his wake.

It’s a tale worthy of featuring on the popular family genealogy television show, Who Do You Think You Are?

The remarkable story was verified to Barbara by a man whose family her paternal grandmother, Margaret O’Brien, worked for as a housekeeper in the Fethard area before she emigrated to England. Barbara met him during a visit to Ireland to research her family tree between 15 and 20 years ago.

Barbara said an obituary for Patrick, a private in the Connaught Rangers regiment, was even published in the April 12, 1916 edition of The Nationalist.

The obituary, written by Andrew Finn, recounted how in Dualla Catholic Church the previous Sunday, “the prayers of the congregation were asked for the repose of the soul of Patrick O’Brien who died from his wounds in the Persian Gulf”.

It outlined that Patrick was scarcely 26-years-old and the fourth son of James and Mrs O’Brien from Coleraine, Dualla and was a member of the 1st Battalion of the Connaught Rangers.

The obituary recounted how Patrick was in the regiment nine years and was serving in India at the outbreak of the war. It pointed out that around the time of the passing of the Home Rule Act for Ireland, Patrick was one of a group Connaught Rangers photographed in India with a placard “We Want Home Rule”.

The photograph was published in the Weekly Freeman. Mr Finn wrote that Patrick O’Brien was “like so many of his exiled countrymen, eagerly awaiting the dawn of Ireland – a nation once again”.

The obituary went on to detail how Patrick was wounded in the first month of the Great War in August 1914.
“He suffered a wounded knee in Belgium when the Connaught Rangers relieved the Irish Guards. No sooner had he recovered than he was again in the firing line, and after more hard fighting in France got a bayonet wound in the head.

“Once more recovering, he proceeded to the fighting arena in the Persian Gulf where he received fatal wounds.”

The obituary goes on to detail how a Sergeant Dudley sent a letter to Patrick’s mother describing their son’s last moments and conveying to his bereaved relatives, “the sympathy of his comrades on the death of such a gallant and promising young soldier, and told of the exemplary Catholic piety of the deceased”.

The obituary concludes by expressing the paper’s “tender and respectful sympathy” to his “bereaved and heartbroken aged parents”.

Barbara said with no prospect of giving their son a proper funeral, her great grandparents James and Mary, organised a wake in his memory for all those who knew and loved him.

“The wake began, the flowers arrived, the tears flowed and James and Mary O’Brien mourned their son. 
“But that wasn’t the end of the story. Out of the blue, an unexpected guest arrived.  It was Patrick O’Brien, seemingly back from the dead, and in his usual good form as ever.”

Barbara said this was the story told to her many times by her aunt Norah.

She doesn’t know how her great grandparents came to be incorrectly informed of their son’s death. One possibility is that the British Army mixed him up with another Irish soldier of the same name who died in action.

She said she contacted The Nationalist because she longs to know what happened to Patrick O’Brien, who was born in 1890.

“Some say that after his military service he never left Ireland and didn’t marry.  Others say he married.

“My aunt wasn’t sure but said she thought he occasionally worked in Liverpool at the Tate & Lyle factory but always returned to Ireland. One person I met when visiting Ireland told me Patrick did marry and one of his daughters looked like me.

“My hope is that someone, somewhere will remember the story about Patrick O’Brien’s wake.

“Though it’s a long time ago, perhaps it was a good enough story to have been handed down over the generations.”

The man who verified to Barbara the story of Patrick’s appearance at his own wake on her visit to Ireland, told her his nickname was Paz and remembered him as a slim, slightly built man of stellar intelligence. He was a master of debating the issues of the day and he had a great love of history.

He also remembered Patrick as likeable, charismatic, beguiling and thrilling to know and good at “blagging” an argument even when he knew nothing about the subject at all. He was also full of tales of “derring do”, a raconteur par excellence.

“This makes me smile as it reminds me of other people in my family,” said Barbara, who wrote for consumer magazines in the UK during her career in journalism.

She outlined that Patrick’s siblings were her grandmother Margaret, Hanora, Ellen and Edmond Brien/O’Brien.
Barbara has been researching her family tree for more than 25 years and has found researching her Irish ancestors can be an uphill task unless you have specific place names or dates.

My parents died when I was in my late 20s/early 30s and I wasn’t interested in genealogy then so didn’t ask many questions, which I bitterly regret now.

“It was difficult when researching on Ancestry.co.uk and Findmypast.co.uk, not least because there are zillions of Patrick O’Briens, though at least I knew the name of the hamlet he was born in so that helped a lot.

“I took a DNA test with Ancestry.co.uk some years ago and that’s also been a fantastic experience and I highly recommend anyone who is genuinely interested in their family history to give it a go.”

Unfortunately, she has found hardly any O’Brien family matches via her DNA test because either members of that side of her family tree have not done a DNA test or because they have been tested through a different company.

“Without matches I can’t progress further so I do hope this article inspires people to consider taking the test.

“Best of all, however, it would be amazing if there’s someone reading this who remembers stories about Patrick O’Brien, born in 1890 at Caherbaun, Coleraine, Cashel or might even be a descendant of him or someone else in the family.”

She pointed out that other family names within this branch of her family are Carty/Carthy/McCarthy, Sullivan, Purtill, Coman while wider family names  include Whelan, Meagher, Brien, Deegan/Ryan.

Anyone with information that may assist Barbara Baker in her research into her granduncle’s life can contact her via the following email address: pazobrienquest@gmail.com

Pictured below are Patrick's parents James and Mary O'Brien