Father Browne's First World War

By Francis Browne and E E O'Donnell

Best known for his remarkable photographs, few people are aware of Francis Browne's astonishing war record. Joining the British Army as a Chaplain in 1916, he served for most of the war with the Irish Guards, ministering to the troops at the Somme, Messines Ridge, Paschendaele, Ypres, Amiens, and Arras. Determined to stay at the front with his men, he was wounded five times, starting with a broken jaw in 1916, and was gassed in 1918. Each time he returned to war as soon as his senior officers would let him. His commanding officer described Fr Browne as "the bravest man I ever met". He was awarded the Military Cross with Bar, the Belgian Croix de Guerre (First Class), and the French Croix de Guerre (with Palm). Eddie O'Donnell SJ has written a fascinating account of Father Browne's war experiences, brought vividly to life with extracts from his letters, and illustrated throughout with photographs taken by Father Browne during the war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Messenger Publications
• Release date: Apr 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781788123853

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Father Frank Browne was just one of the many Jesuits who served as chaplains during the First World War. This is the story of his time in the army.

In fact his life was more spectacular both before and after the 1914-18 conflict. He had become famous in 1912 when the photographs he had taken on the maiden voyage of Titanic were published in newspapers across the world.

By the time he was demobilised from the Irish Guards in 1920, he had taken less than a thousand photographs, hardly more than the average happy snapper of the time. But by the end of his life, forty years later, he had taken over 42,000 pictures and was more than just an amateur photographer. He was sponsored by Kodak, commissioned to take photographs by the British and Irish governments, had won many gold medals for his pictures and had been instrumental in establishing Ireland’s International Salon of Photography.

The reader of these pages will see that Frank Browne was a genuinely holy man. He always put his priesthood first and foremost: I feel certain that he would like to be remembered as a good priest who took some good photographs.

The reader will be able to set this book in a fuller context by delving into Irish Jesuit Chaplains in the First World War issued by Messenger Publications, Dublin, in the winter of 2014.

The same busy reader will be able to find out what happened to Father Browne during the second half of his long life by investing in my biography of the priest, A Life in Pictures. This was re-issued in an updated version – also by Messenger Publications – earlier in 2014 with the new title The Life and Lens of Father Browne.

FATHER BROWNE’S FIRST WORLD WAR

E E O’DONNELL SJ

When World War One broke out in 1914, John Redmond – the leader of the Irish Party at Westminster – asked the Irish Volunteers to join the British Army believing that this would lead to Home Rule after the war. Approximately 80,000 men answered the call, the vast majority of them being Roman Catholics. Chaplains were badly needed and the Religious Orders were asked to supply them. They did this on a voluntary basis and the Jesuits were not the last when it came to volunteering.

It is generally accepted that there was quite a close connection between the Jesuits and the Irish Party at that time. A large proportion of the Irish MPs, including the Redmonds, were educated in Jesuit colleges. John Fitzgibbon SJ, and the son of a Westminster MP, was killed while serving the Royal Army Medical Corps in France.¹

Figures differ from source to source, but my understanding is that thirty-two Irish Jesuits volunteered to serve as chaplains during the course of the war. Five members of the Irish Province died (Frs John Gwynn, Willie Doyle, John Fitzgibbon, Austin Hartigan and Edward Sydes) as did three Irishmen belonging to the English Province (Frs Timothy Carey of Limerick, Walter Montague of Portstewart and William Keary of Galway). Yet another to lose his life was Fr Michael Bergin SJ, a Tipperary man who belonged to the Lyon Province.

I list these fatalities at the start because it shows the good fortune of the other twenty-three chaplains. At least they got home alive! In Fr Frank Browne’s case, he just about made it. He was injured five times and badly gassed once. He managed to survive all this and kept going back for more.

Francis Mary Hegarty Browne was born in Cork in 1880. He joined the Jesuits in 1898, spent three years in UCD in company with James Joyce, studied philosophy for three years in Italy and began his theological studies at Milltown