Connaught Rangers at King House.

 

During my recent lunchtime sojourn in Boyle, Co Roscommon I spent a short time in King House. Although built as a residence for the King family in the first half of the eighteenth century it subsequently saw service as a barracks for the Connaught Rangers and the Roscommon Militia. After having been rented to the War Office for some years it was sold to it in 1795 for £3,000. A military usuage was continued after the disbandment of the Connaught Rangers in 1922 and the laying up of the regiment's colours at Windsor Castle. Ultimately the building was to fall into decrepitude before being purchased and reinstated by Roscommon County Council. Among other uses the building now houses the museum of the Connaught Rangers Association.

I had hoped to have time to look around the entire museum before leaving for home but a stroll around what is described as the Remembrance Room was all that time permitted. This deals primarily with the regiment's role at Gallipoli. Among the many photographs of those who did not survive the bloodbath that was the Great War was a faded image of a private soldier who was to die some two years later in India. This individual, one James Daly, has the dubious honour of being the last British soldier to be shot for mutiny. Daly was the ringleader of the Jullundur mutiny. Another seventy seven soldiers were sentenced to imprisonment. Eighteen of the latter number were originally to receive the same fate as Daly but had their sentences commuted.