JEREMIAH MAHONEY
There is little conclusive evidence to connect Jeremiah Mahoney to Portsmouth, but circumstantially there is enough to warrant his inclusion on these pages.
Jeremiah Mahoney was born in the parish of Aghavannagh, County Cork, Ireland in 1876. Of the first 23 years of his life there is no trace, the earliest reference being in The National Roll which states that he enlisted in the army in 1899. He doesn't appear in the 1901 census, as presumably he was serving overseas, but he must have retained a strong association with his birth place as in 1908 he married his wife Mary who also born there. In 1911 the census records that Jeremiah and Mary were living as boarders at Pembroke Dock with their two children, Kathleen (2) and M. Ellen (1).
The National Roll also relates that when war broke out in August 1914 Jeremiah Mahoney was serving in Sierra Leone and he stayed there for the first ten months of the war. He was then drafted to the Western Front where he took part in the battles of the Somme, Arras and Amiens. After the Armistice he was serving with the Army of Occupation when he was accidentally killed.
At some point after 1911 Jeremiah and Mary presumably moved to Portsmouth as the CWGC record gives Mary's address as 176 Jervis Road, Stamshaw. Assuming that as a couple from Ireland they followed the Catholic faith they were fortunate in living just a few hundred yards from Corpus Christi, one of the few catholic churches in Portsmouth. Jeremiah is remembered on the WW1 memorial there.
FURTHER INFORMATION
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission list Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Mahoney, (28004), Royal Garrison Artillery, died 29/12/1918, age 43. Buried at Kortrijk (St. Jan) Communal Cemetery, Grave Reference B9. Son of Edward and Kate Mahoney; husband of Mary A. Mahoney, of 176, Jervis Rd., Twyford Avenue, Portsmouth.
Jeremiah Mahoney is remembered on the Corpus Christi WW1 memorial but probably not on the Cenotaph, unless he was JS Mahoney. He is listed in "The National Roll of the Great War", Section X, p332.
Tim Backhouse
February 2014