Esther Sullivan - nee Tuite born 1914.

As you might have noticed, if you read this on a regular basis, I don't usually mention any of my family, or friends, by name; I have done this once or twice with my parents, Christy Sullivan Dublin Barber and my mother – Essie Sullivan – in previous posts of those names and I think I mentioned the brudder's name once.

Well today is the centenary of my mother's birth – our mother's birth – Esther Mary Tuite, born October 5^th 1914 in Dublin, Ireland.

Later she became Esther Sullivan – Essie from the Alex and previous to that Esther Sullivan, company director of the Lawden Manfacturing Company, Broad Street, Birmingham.

She died in 1993 on December 19^th so may she rest in peace.

1914 was the year the great war broke out – the First World War – and my grandfather, Patrick Joseph Tuite, went off to that terrible war with the British Army and getting gassed in the trenches for his trouble; I think that was in 1916 and who knows maybe it was the Battle of the Somme.

I have no details as to whether he was invalided out of the army because of that but he went on to live till 1974.

As there is a lot of publicity concerning the first world war at the moment, I tried to find out if he was listed anywhere and, even though I can find two Tuites, with more or less the same forenames who were in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and another Irish regiment of the British Army, I can's find him in the war records because those two soldiers died in 1917.

In 1916, in Dublin, there was an insurrection called the Irish Uprising where Patrick Pearse (Padraig MacPiarais) read the famous proclamation from the steps of the General Post Office in O'Connell Street Dublin and then fighting broke out.

Padraig MacPiarais

I looked through loads of photos of him and they're mostly like this, as maybe posing for his portrait in profile - maybe posing for his portrait on the stamps and coins.

The English attacked the post office using their long range guns as they sailed in through the foggy dew – sound familiar? Yes the words to a song. Oh look – there I am singing it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tt3g3Hq6pE (do you know my hair is that long now; I'll get it cut next week).

In France an officer called my granddad in to the office and said “There's a 'bit of trouble in your country.” And that's all granddad knew about the uprising back home; I would fire questions at him but that's all he knew.

One of the things I found out recently was that nearly all the men who were killed in that war from Britain didn't get a vote - and don't forget Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom - they gave their lives without their permission; the only men who were allowed to vote were the gentry or property owners.

Men were given the vote at the same time as women which was after the war in 1918; men at 21 and women at 30.

It stayed like that for about 10 years and then the women's voting age came down to 21; this was, so they say, because too many men were killed in that war and they thought those voting ages would make things more even.

The reason my granddad went off to fight in the war – and I remember pictures of him on the sideboard at my Grannie Tuite's house wearing a skull cap – was because they were broke. My mother was born the same year as the war and then when the war was over there she saw a lot of fighting in the streets.

She told me a lot about that and how she saw men carrying their comrade from the battle of the Forecourts and how they used a door as a stretcher to carry him out.

So today (October 5^th 2014) would have been Esther Mary Tuite's 100^th birthday, Essie Sullivan, Essie from the Alex and previous to that Esther Sullivan, company director of the Lawden Manufacturing Company, Broad Street, Birmingham.

What would she think if she suddenly came back and saw all the apps, the internet, the smart phones and the smart arses using them and coming up with the answers to the Universe.

She died in 1993 on December 19^th and may she rest in peace.