Cistercian College Roscrea in Ireland was opened by Cistercian monks in 1905 as a Roman Catholic monastic boarding school for boys. Nine years later, many of its past pupils would find themselves fighting in the Great War. As the school was relatively new when the war broke out, fewer past pupils would take up arms, compared to the numbers who did so from to older schools. However, those that did would serve with in all areas of the conflict Gerry O’Meara looks at the lives of some of those past pupils including some who also took part in Ireland’s War of Independence.
Gerry O’Meara is the secretary of the Cork Branch of the WFA. A native of Lorrha, Co. Tipperary in Ireland, Gerry has a life-long interest in military history and he is the author of the award-winning book, ‘Lorrha People in the Great War’ which was published in 2016.