DUBLIN WAS A city in mourning as hundreds of young Irish soldiers in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers were killed at Ypres and Gallipoli. On the Western Front they were mown down by rapid-action German machine guns or by poisonous gas, dying in rows where they fell.
‘I cannot bear it, to hear of so many killed in such a cowardly fashion using gas,’ Isabella cried angrily. ‘How can the Germans commit such atrocities against their fellow man?’
Frederick read the newspapers almost obsessively as details emerged of the slaughter of the Irish battalion as they landed on V beach in Gallipoli in late April, trying to make it to the shore under heavy Turkish machine-gun fire.
‘Those poor young lads stood no chance,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Why would Churchill and General Hamilton give such orders?’
The streets of the city and of many Irish towns were now filled with widows dressed in mourning and children wearing black armbands as more and more families were bereaved. They collected the supplementary allowance that the army paid weekly to all widows and their children. Isabella pitied those young wives and stoical mothers dressed in black as they tried to go through the day-to-day motions of their lives.
Isabella had written four letters of condolence over the past two weeks. She and Frederick attended memorial services for the sons of friends and for legal colleagues who would never be able to have their child’s body returned to them for a decent burial.
Isabella had just left the haberdashery store in Rathmines one day when her eyes read the newspaper headline:
THE LUSITANIA SUNK BY THE GERMANS
She immediately purchased the paper from a cheeky young corner newsboy. ‘The Kaiser’s gone and done it now, missus,’ he said, ‘blowing a passenger ship out of the water.’
Appalled, she hurried home.
‘Mother, have you heard about the Lusitania?’ Grace asked, her voice shaking as she joined her in the drawing room.
Isabella was so upset as she read that over a thousand passengers and crew had been killed. A German submarine had deliberately sunk the large passenger liner travelling from New York to Dublin as it neared Ireland. This was no accident like the Titanic but a deliberate act of violence by the German empire.
‘Ethel and Eric travelled on the Lusitania only last year coming from Canada,’ she said, shocked.
‘How could a submarine sink a ship full of innocent people and leave them to drown?’ raged Grace.
‘The Kaiser has no decency,’ replied Isabella, thinking of Liebert away at sea, worried that the German navy might now plan on sinking ships crossing the Atlantic.
‘Hugh Lane was a passenger. He was bringing a valuable new collection of paintings home from New York.’
‘Poor man. Art was his life … Remember his big plans for that gallery on the River Liffey,’ Isabella remarked, thinking of the controversy when Dublin Corporation had finally refused to contribute to the gallery and Sir Hugh Lane had removed his paintings to London. ‘I will write at once to his dear brothers, for they were so good when our Gerald died. It must be a huge shock to the family and to his aunt, Lady Gregory.’
The Germans have gone too far this time,’ Frederick pronounced dourly over dinner. ‘The Americans will not take kindly to the killing of their innocent citizens sailing on board a ship across the Atlantic.’
Three weeks later Claude informed them he was doing his duty and had enlisted in the army. He was to be sent to France with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
Although Isabella and Frederick were very proud of their son’s decision and his strong sense of duty and loyalty to the British crown, Isabella felt an icy cold fear grip her heart and soul … All she could do was hope and pray that Claude and his company would somehow stay safe.