Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A silver fob presented by the prominent Irish nationalist politician, Willie Redmond M.P., to Willie ‘Dodger’ Considine, one of Co. Clare team to win the 1914 All Ireland Hurling Championship, who later became a close friend of President Éamon de Valera

Sporting Medallion, Ireland, silver, with Gaelic engraved obverse, the reverse engraved (Clare Hurling Champions 1914 Willie Considine from W. Redmond M.P) suspender ring missing, very fine £100-£140

William (Willie) Redmond was born on 13 April 1861, to William Redmond, a Roman Catholic who served as the Member of Parliament for Wexford for the Home Rule Party, from 1872-1880. His mother, Mary Hoey, the daughter of General R. H. Hoey, was a Protestant.

After his education in Kildare, he was commissioned into the Wexford Militia before becoming politically active. He campaigned for Charles Stewart Parnell in the 1880 General Election and, two years later, as a result of intense agitation for land reform, ended up sharing a cell in Kilmainham Gaol with him for three months. Upon his release, he travelled to Australia, New Zealand and the United States garnering support for Irish Home Rule, returning to Ireland in 1883, when he was elected Member of Parliament for Wexford. In 1892, he was elected Member of Parliament for East Claire. In 1914, at the final of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, he joined the Co. Clare team as they entered the field of play, before their victory over Co. Laois.

He dedicated himself to helping to achieve Home Rule and Self Government for Ireland. Yet shortly after the start of the Great War, and when, in September 1914, the Third Home Rule Bill had finally received its Royal Assent, he was clear where his duty required him to be. Addressing a crowd in Cork on 22 November, he stated; ‘I speak as a man who, with all the poor ability at his command, has fought the battle for self-government for Ireland. No man who is honest can doubt the single-minded desire of myself and men like me, to do what is right for Ireland. And when it comes to the question, as it may come of asking young Irishmen to go abroad and fight this battle, when I am personally convinced that the battle for Ireland is to be fought where many Irishmen now are, in Flanders and France, old as I am, and grey as my hairs are, I will say ‘Don’t go, but come with me’.

Aged 53, he was commissioned into the 6th Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, and appointed command of B Company. Serving on the Western Front from 1915 to 1916, when, due to failing health, he was offered a posting behind the lines, which he rejected on the grounds that he would never ask his soldiers to do something that he would not be prepared to do himself.

On the 7 March 1917 he made his final visit to the House of Commons, wearing the uniform of the Royal Irish Regiment, when he delivered an impassioned speech, concluding: ‘In the name of God, we here who are about to die, perhaps, ask you to do that which largely induced us to leave our homes; to do that which our mothers and fathers taught us to long for; to do that which is all we desire; make our country happy and contented, and enable us, when we meet the Canadians and the Australians and the New Zealanders side by side in the common cause and on the common field, to say to them: ‘our country, just as yours, has self-government within the Empire.’

Returning to the Western Front, he was severely wounded on 7 June 1917, whilst leading his men during the Battle for Messines Ridge. He died of his wounds later that day at the convent in Locre, Belgium, where he is buried in an isolated grave, now maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

William ‘Dodger’ Considine, a close friend of President Éamon de Valera, was born in Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland, on 29 July 1885. A noted Irish Sportsman, he played hurling with his local club Ennis Dalcassians and was, together with his brother Brendan, a member of the Co. Clare team that beat Co. Laois to win the All-Ireland Senior Hurling final of 1914. His younger brother Turlough, or ‘Tull’, similarly became a noted Sportsman. Willie also won five Co. Claire senior county hurling championship medals and three Gaelic football medals. Away from the sporting field, he played an active part in both the 1917 election campaign and the Irish War of Independence. He appears in a photograph, with his arms lifted, clearing a path through the crowd for President de Valera, as they left Ennis Catherdal together, in the 1920’s. Willie Considine died, aged 74, on 11 September 1959. At his funeral, President de Valera was represented by Commandant J. A. Reilly.

Sold together with three copy press cuttings which refer to his death, one of which mentions his close friendship with President de Valera.