2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, 1915

Photograph, World War One (1914-1918), 1915.

Men of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, who survived the German attack on the Bellewarde Ridge, 24 May 1915, standing by the Ypres Canal, taken by F Fitzmaurice, 24 May 1915.

In the early hours of 24 May 1915, during the 2nd Battle of Ypres, the Germans unleashed a heavy gas attack as a prelude to an assault on Bellewarde Ridge. They succeeded in enfilading the positions held by the 2nd Royal Irish and inflicting severe casualties upon them. All of the battalion's officers who were in the trenches that day, including its commander Lieutenant Colonel Redmond Moriarty, were recorded as killed or missing. The exception was Lieutenant Herbert Donald Mckay, Connaught Rangers, who was attached to 2nd Royal Irish. McKay is the officer in the centre of this photograph, standing in the front row, to the left of the regimental medical officer. The battalion also lost 379 other ranks that day, including Private John Condon, aged just 14. Condon is believed to be the youngest British soldier to be killed in action on the Western Front.