" If you get through, tell my mother "

the Connaught Rangers reported to be unocuppied, worried

Lieutenant Colonel R.C Fielding who assumed command of the 6th Connaught Rangers on the death of Lenox-Conyngham. An Englishman and special reserve officer of the Coldsteam Guards, Fielding was from an old Catholic family and seems to have won immediately the trust of his Catholic Irish soldiers who called him
'Snowball' because of his white hair. In turn he devoloped a great sympathy and respect for his Rangers. Another of those Englishmen who became completely devoted to their Irish soldiers was Lieutenant Guy Nightingale. He had served with the 1st Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers since before the war and wrote to his family his now oft quoted comment:

I would sooner be in an Irish Regiment with Irish Soldiers behind me
In a scrap than any English or Scots unit they would like to produce.

Irish Officers were seen as more friendly than the English-more democratic or at any rate less feudal in outlook. Although those Englishmen who did serve with Irish regiments seem to have been greatly respected by the troops, some were seen as strict but very just.
Plans for the Battle at Ginchy were changed at the last minute and the Irish Brigades were ordered to wait for an extra two minutes after zero hour of 4.45pm so that a final longer bombardment of the German trenches might take place. 47 Brigade duly waited in their trenches which meant the Germans were now well prepared when the barrage lifted and in the attacking waves Colonel Curzon of the 6th Royal Irish was killed, and with the 8th Munsters, both battalions were swept back by a torrent of machine-gun fire from the supposedly derelict trench previously mentioned. The 6th Connaught Rangers and the 7th Leinsters, coming on behind were also massacred in the hurricane of steel and lead, as the Leinster historian writes,

The only thing to do was drop into the crowded trench and get
Any cover possible. In a very short time all the company officers
With the exception of Lieutenant V.J Farrell and Lieutenant
Keating had been killed

Farrell earned an MC when later that evening seeing the useless slaughter of his men he withdrew the remainder of the battalion to the Guillemont-Bapaume road. For the 7th Leinsters 9th September was their most disastrous day. 48 Brigade either did not get or ignored the order to wait and went ahead swiftly to find the Germans still under cover, but they suffered greatly from enfilade fire and from ' unders ' ( their own shells falling short )
Old regulars in the 1st Munsters, however, only recently transferred from the ' incomparable ' 29th Division to 48 Brigade, showed their battle experience. Second Lieutenant D.J. Bailey, when all the company officers were either killed or wounded within the first fifty yards of the trenches took command of ' X ' Company, pushed forward, but finding the right flank exposed he wheeled to the right and dug in; only 28 men were were left to him. Company sergeant Harris, of Munsters 'Z' Company also demonstrated great leadership. In the advance when his commander was wounded he took over, wheeled the left of his Company and charged, driving the enemy out of their trench. On continuing the advance he found the enemy again strongly entrenched so dug in opposite them and with the assistance of one machine gun held his position until relieved, thus preventing the Germans cutting through on the right. New Army Irish soldiers of the 7th Royal Irish Rifles supported by the 7th Royal Irish Fusiliers also fought with great spirit and successfully reached the German line in the western part of Ginchy. Together with the other Irish troops, they drove the Germans out of Ginchy with such Gusto that 'it was difficult to find enough Irishmen to begin the neccessary work of consolidating the line around the ruined village'.
It was here that Lieutenant Tom Kettle was killed, leading his company of the 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, by a rifle bullet in the upper chest ( Toms poetry is also included on this website ) ' above a protective waistcoast ' His friend and fellow officer 18 year old Lieutenant Emmet Dalton, following behind was horrified to see Tom fall..Emmet paused to press a crucifix into his hand...Tom was obviously dying. Young Emmet, the ' boy hero of Ginchy ' then took command of two companies without officers and led them to their final objective. After dark with only one sergeant escorting he captured an officer and twenty men winning the Military Cross for his bravery and leadership. Tom kettle in France only since mid July had very little battle experience though he had taken many risks in the battle around Guillemont where he came through unscathed as if he had a charmed life. He ought not to have been in the battle at all but like most men wanted to be with his friends and fellow Irishmen. His health was poor, aggravated by conditions in the trenches. he had turned down a staff appointment, insisting on staying with his Dublin Fusiliers whose ' radiant valour ' he constantly praised when writing home. His men loved him, as Father Felix Burke, Roman Catholic chaplain with the Dublin Fusiliers wrote ' we all looked up to him as a towering genius and a storehouse of information ' It was said that this most talented and complicated Irishman ' hardly cared what happened to him ' The 9th September was a day of loss for literary Ireland.

German prisoners help carryBritish wounded back to their lines
During the attack on Ginchy

The important sunken road was transformed into the main British Line leaving LeuzeWood reconnoitred as the next objective. But besides driving thus far into the enemy's position immediately around Combles, the dashing Irishmen on the left breaking clean through the north of Guillemont, continued along the road to Ginchy. Here they were stopped by machine-gun fire from the cellars and underground works, but they hauled forward trench mortars, levelled all the works with aerail torpedoes and conquered in another fierce rush the High Street and most of the houses. then assailed by converging columns of fresh German troops, the Munsters, Dublins and Irish Rifles drew back from the northern part of Ginchy, but clung to its Southern outskirts. They were battered incessantly by cross-fires of German Artillery of all calibres, lashed with machine-gun squalls and cut off from supplies and supports by terrific barrages of shell. But they hung on with amazing courage while General Von Kirchbach brought two fresh divisions forward.
For five days and nights the Irishmen lay in shell craters south and east of Ginchy, scantily fed, heavily shelled and with little sleep. On the third night they dug towards each other from their craters, and formed the shell holes into a connected shallow trench. In spite of the strain and misery of lying in the open under a heavy fire the men were so keen on conquering Ginchy that those who had been lightly wounded would not go to the field hospital, and pleaded to be allowed to stay. Irish orderlies vanished from Headquarters and were discovered in the firing-line. " I missed Guillemont " said one of them " and i must be in at Ginchy. If im alright, I'll come back when it is over. I am very sorry " On the 8th September the German commander threw his new troops into the village with a great store of food and fresh Prussians and Bavarians were ready for a fierce fight. At least one German sniper tied himself to a tree-top to make sure his courage would not give way and most of the bavarian machine-gunners were resolute to fight to the death. But when the Irishmen made their closing charge in the....

afternoon of September 9th they covered six hundred yards in eight minutes of furious battle, eaching again the High Street in the heart of the village. As the yelling Dublins advanced two hundred Germans surrendered from a trench running from the western line to the centre of Ginchy. On the other hand some furious Bavarians left their cellars and fought madly in the open until they were bayoneted or bombed.
Fighting then continued in the village around nests of machine-guns which were silenced by trench-mortars and along a road where the enemy had another line of machine-guns that shattered a fine Irish Battalion in a few minutes. But again the useful trench mortar was brought forward and the enemy gunners were shelled out, while a sergeant, two corporals and a private of the Munsters recaptured three hundred feet of trench from which their comrades had been driven and then held the wide gap unaided for several hours...