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Note: ARMY Jeremiah Barry joined the army on 1 October 1914 at the age of 31 years and 120 days. He was 5' 4.75" and weighed 135 lbs. His girth, when fully expanded was 39.5" with a range of expansion of 2". He had grey eyes and brown hair. He had slight varicose veins on his left leg, scars on both knees and sailor tattoo on right forearm, heart etc. tattoo on back of right hand and 2 hearts etc. tattoo on left forearm. He was Roman Catholic. He was in good health. On 22 Oct 1914 he was sent to France. On 31 Dec 1914 until 10 March 1915 he was in hospital in France. He was transferred to England on 10 March 1915. On 19 March 1915, he was declared a deserter for going absent without leave from 19 March until 26 March 1915. On his return he was then held in civil custody in the detention room awaiting trial on 29 March 1915. He was sentenced to 112 days detention. On 9 July 1915, he was under guard in the detention room again awaiting trial for another charge. He was sentenced to 6 months detention for when on active service, using insubordinate language to his superior officer. He was discharged for misconduct on 29 Sept 1915. MARRIAGE Annie, Jeremiah's mum didn't want him to marry Emily. Apparently, she was waiting outside the church when they got married with an apron full of horse s--t to throw at them, instead of confetti. So the priest had to let them out the back door of the church. FIGHTS There were lots and lots of fights when Jeremiah came home drunk. He only got nasty in drink when he drank Mann & Crossman's beer. Nan said they made it from old boxing gloves. Any other brewery's beer and he was fine. COMING OVER FROM IRELAND Irene said that her mum, Lily, told her that Jeremiah had told her that he came over to England as a small boy with his father and remembered his father holding him up on the boat so that he could see Ireland as they left the coast for the last time. So he must have been very young. He never went back there. However, according to Jeremiah's army records, he was born in Poplar. I have found his father on the 1871 and 1881 censuses. Jeremiah was born in 1883/4 and I have found him on the 1891 census, so either his family travelled over to Ireland between 1881 and 1883/4 and he was born there and then they came back before 1889, when his father died in Poplar. Or they went over for a holiday after he was born. I can't find his birth certificate, so could he have been born in Ireland? According to Irene, her mum said that Jeremiah had the most beautiful auburn coloured hair and that when he washed it it was the colour of a new penny, but then he would put brill-cream on it and that made it appear dark. MEDICINES Apparently, Jeremiah used to make a lot of medicines and would always be the one to look after the children when they were sick. He obviously had been taught lots of recipes from someone that had some sort of homeopathic knowledge. PHOTOS Grandad didn't like having his photo taken and this could have been where the stories that he was on the run from the IRA came from. Someone could have started it as a joke and others took it literally. Apparently, Nan only had one photo of granddad and, unfortunately, in one of their fights, she hit him over the head with it and so that was that, no photos. DEATH PENALTY BY SHOOTING When Jeremiah was in the army at war, he had an officer that took a dislike to him. He kept picking on him time and time again. Then, one day they were marching in the freezing cold, when this officer struck granddad across the face with his leather gloves and called him an Irish pig and told him to keep up. This was the last straw and granddad jumped on him and left him for dead in a ditch. The other men saw what had happened, but closed rank and moved on. Unfortunately, for granddad the officer was found and he survived. Granddad was up on a charge of assaulting an officer in war time, which was an offence which carried a death penalty by shooting. Grandmother got a solicitor and was told to take one of the younger children with her to the court and beg for mercy. She took Lily, who remembered being held up in her mother's arms in the court room. They managed to get witnesses to come forward to state that this officer had been bullying and harassing granddad above and beyond reason. He escaped the death penalty, but got one year's hard labour and, in those days, hard labour meant just that. Poor old nan had to survive without her man. NICE COAT FOR VISITS TO PARENTS Nan never let on to her family how bad things were at home, whilst granddad was in prison. She always kept a nice coat for visits to her parents. One day a neighbour asked if she could borrow her coat. Her husband had given her the money for a new coat and she had spent it, but she told nan that she had not had time to go and get one and would do so the following week. So nan lent her the coat. Then the next weekend the woman again asked to borrow the coat, and told nan that she had spent the money and that her husband would kill her if he found out, so nan lent her the coat, but warned her that the following week she was going to see her parents and needed the coat herself. The following week, the woman arrived to borrow the coat and nan said 'I told you I need it myself this week'. Later that evening, on the way home from visiting her folks, she came along just as the pubs were throwing out and the husband of the woman saw nan on the other side of the road and shouted out 'Look at her! Walking along with her nose in the air, whilst her old man dodges the war, in my old woman's coat'. Well nan crossed the road and said 'What did you say?'. He repeated what he had said and she said 'Really, well, as for this being your old woman's coat, it isn't it's mine. She has been borrowing it for the last three weeks. Ask her what she did with the money you gave her. Oh and by the way, as for my old man dodging the war, he more than did his bit. Where were you when the men enlisted? Safe and sound at home.' And with that, she punched him and sent him flying. She told granddad what had happened and granddad didn't like the man anyway. When granddad finally came home from prison, he didn't go out much at first. Then, one day, he said to nan 'I think I will have a little walk down to the corner shop'. 'Good' she said. When he came back, he said 'I bumped into old (Irene couldn't remember the man's name) and he told me that you had blacked his eye whilst I was in prison and that I should give you a back hander for it'. Nan said 'What did you say to that?'. Granddad said 'I asked him which eye you had blacked and he siad the left one'. So granddad thumped him one and said 'now you have a matching pair!' THE CUT THROAT RAZOR Lily, my mum's sister, was psychic and she always knew when her dad was going to start trouble. She used to get a feeling in her stomach. One night, Nan was sitting unpicking an old coat that somebody had given to her, so that she could turn the material into a pair of trousers for one of the boys. She was sitting on a low stall with her back to the window, which was open. It was an up and down sash type window. She had Aunt Ann , who was a baby on her lap whilst she was unpicking the garment. Lily said to her 'Mum, he is going to start when he comes in. Please don't argue with him, just ignore him please.' Nan said 'Oh he won't start.' Lily said 'I am telling you he will.' Just then granddad came home more than a little merry. He looked at Nan and said 'Don't tell me you've been there all night. I suppose you've just got in before me, making out like you're busy.' Nan looked at Lily, who shook her head with a look on her face pleading for her not to answer, so Nan stayed quiet. When she didn't bite, granddad went on to say 'And don't tell me that's mine either' and pointed at the baby. Again Lily shook her head, so Nan again didn't answer. With that, granddad said 'So you admit it?' and then he punched Nan, whose head went through the two pains of glass. Nan stood up, thrust the baby at Lily, and said 'That's you, you silly cow telling me not to answer'. So the fight started. Lily ran to a neighbour with the baby and left her there. She then went back to help her mum. Well, by this time, Nan, who was supposed to be able to fight like a man, because she had to, had managed to give granddad a bloody nose. When she saw what she had done, she knew he would go mad, so she ran out of the house. Lily said he saw the blood on his shirt, but thought it was nan's, so he said 'Ha ha. That will knock some of the Irish blood out of you.' I don't understand this, because she wasn't Irish. He then turned and saw himself in the mirror. Lily said he was like a raging bull. He screamed out 'AAAAAAAHHHHHH!' and went after her. Lily didn't know what to do, so she grabbed the sugar bowl, which was full of sugar and was always in the middle of the table, threw the sugar in granddad's face and hit him over the head with it. It was a big bowl with a stand at the bottom, that was almost as big as the top. She then ran. The kitchen or scullery, as they called it in those days, was down in the basement. As she tried to run up the stairs, she was so frightened that her legs gave way and she slid down the stairs again. She had to crawl up them on her hands and knees. When she got outside, she didn't know where to go, until she heard a sound coming from the alleyway, that ran down the side of their house that lead to a stables, where the local doctor kept his horse. 'Psst! Psst!' When she looked, it was nanny hiding down the alley with a black coat over her. Mum ran down to her and they both hid under the black coat. Just then granddad came out of the house and looked down the alleyway. Nanny pulled the coat over them, so that they couldn't be seen in the dark alley. Granddad went back into the house and came out with a leather strop and a cut throat razor. He put the strop over the railings that lead up their stairs to the front door and started to sharpen the razor. Lily said every now and then he would stop and look down the alley, then start sharpening again. Lily said 'Oh mum, he is going to kill us.' Nan said 'Shut up or you're going to get both our throats cut.' Just then a policeman, that they knew well came along. His number was 309 and they referred to this man by his number. When nan saw the policeman, she stepped out of tjhe alleyway and said to the policement 'Officer, I want that man arrested.' He said 'Why is that madam?' She said 'See what he has got in his hands for me and my daughter. He is going to cut our throats.' The policeman, who was none too keen to try to arrest granddad, as he knew he was a real handful said 'This gentleman is standing on his own property and unless he attacks you, there is nothing I can do about it.' 'Oh' said nan 'so we have to get our f-----g throats cut before you can do anything?' The policeman said 'Madam, if you were my wife, I'd cut your bleeding throat.' So nan and Lily had to make a run for it. They went to stay with Uncle John and slept on his front room floor. After they had been there for a couple of days, Lily came home from work and Uncle John said 'You have to go home. Mum's gone back, so should you.' Lily didn't want to go, but she had to. When she got home, her father was sitting by the fire reading his newpaper. She sat down and nan gaver her her dinner, which was her favourite, pork chop, potatoes and peas. She said she didn't know how she ate it, but she didn't want her dad to know she was afraid. She said, all the time she was eating it, every now and then he kept looking over the top of his newspaper. When she had finished, he put down his newspaper and said 'And what, my lady, do you think you were doing the other night, striking your father?' To which Lily replied 'Not according to you. None of us belong to you apparently. In fact, we are keeping you.' At the time, granddad was out of work, under false pretences. With that granddad got up with tears in his eyes and left the room. Nan said to Lily 'Oh, you sod! Why did you say that?' Lily said 'Look mum. We are not children anymore and we know what he is inferring and it isn't right!' Nan went after granddad and said 'Sorry Jerry.' He said 'You told her to say that.' She said 'I didn't and if I had known she was going to say it, I would have stopped her, but Jerry, she is right.in what she says. They are not kids anymore and they know what you are saying.!' Lily told her daughter, Irene, years later, that they say that drunken men don't know what they are saying, but granddad never said those things to her again. An interesting fact is that Jeremiah died at the same address as Edward Sandell (1864), who was one of my dad's cousins twice removed, died at 4 years before in 1929.
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