Jack Nolan

I remember him clearly , sitting by the fire , it seemed to me Summer or Winter , wearing his hat ( I can't say that I ever saw him NOT wearing his hat ) , tobacco-stained moustache , poking the fire .....always , always poking the fire . ( I can remember clearly one day when I was fiddling with the poker and accidently pulled over a large sooty kettle , which was constantly on the boil on the 'range', scalding my legs seriously and having the doctor apply lotion to the huge blisters which resulted . As it was near Christmas and all my siblings were off to see Santa Clause in Clearys my physical pain was added to by disappointment , even though I did get my Santa present by proxy . )
This was Tom Nolan , my maternal grandfather . He outlived his wife Kate by many years as he did most of his peers . When I was 5 or 6 or maybe older I would see him almost daily during my school mid-day break . He was a dour man but not without humour . He had little patience with two 5 or 6- year- old boys , myself and my younger brother and our kindly grandmother Kate had often to warn us to 'make ourselves scarce ' because grandad Tom had gone outside to cut a switch , to curb our boisterousness (?).For the record we never actually saw this infamous 'switch'.
Tom Nolan , was a retired tram-driver , from the Dublin United Tramway Company (D.U.T.C.)
a private tram company before CIE was formed .He and his family (during my time this consisted of two surviving daughters , my mother and her sister. ).Tram Villas , was the address and many of the tram employees lived in such accomodation , a terrace of small , comfortable houses in the midst of a stirring suburb of Dublin City , Terenure .
Patrick Pearse and his Volunteers would have passed by the end of that terrace on the morning of the Easter Rising on their way from Pearse's school in St. Enda's in Rathfarnham in to O'Connell St. (Sackville St.) and into Irish History . It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Tom may have been driving the tram that took some of the rebels on that journey .At that time Tom and Kate would have had a son , birth cert name John but always called Jack . Tom's son would not have been at home when the Volunteers passed by on Easter Monday , he had already volunteered to join the 6th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusillers in 1915 . I was told by my mother that he gave his age as 17 when he was in fact only 16 .Like Pearse , Jack died in 1916 (Oct) in Greece on what he believed was an equally important mission .
But when I knew Tom Nolan he was not allowed to shout from the rooftops how proud he was of his son because after 1922 the only heros we were allowed to acknowledge were those who died here .
So Jack Nolan at 16 years of age volunteered . Apparently he was initally sent on 'home' duties , for example I remember my mother telling me that Jack had written to his parents about being assigned to duty in Cork following the sinking of the Luisitania , that duty was to help collect the bodies as they were washed up on the beach , as the ship had been sunk not too far off shore .
I also remember my mother telling me of letters received by her parents from Jack's commanding officer , saying that Jack had volunteered to 'go to the front' twice but because of his age he was refused but if he volunteered a third time he would be allowed to go .....Jack Nolan , Corporal , aged 18 years died fighting in Greece on 3rd Oct,1916 , no. 18890 and is buried in a military cemetary Struma in Greece about 65 kilometers from Tessolonica...
To my knowledge no member of the family has ever visited his grave ,(yet?) certainly Tom
or Kate didn't .
Tom Nolan was a simple man and must have been terribly confused when his young hero son ( and tens of thousands like him ) were vilified in 'memoirs' of various home-grown 'heros' for 'taking the King's shilling '.
Thank God this is all changing now and myself and my wife won't feel awkward anymore when we wear the ''Poppy'' on Rememberance Sunday......
For Tom and Kate Nolan , their son Jack , daughters , Kathleen , Carmel , Josie .