People on board

BRADY, James

James Brady was born in 1893 and he was in Ratoath, Co. Meath, aged seven, in the 1901 census living with his uncle Michael Brady and family. In November 1910 James joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and can be found in the 1911 census in Beggars Bush Barracks in Dublin. Later in 1911 he transferred to the Irish Guards and served with them throughout the war in France.

According to military medical records James spent eighteen days in Rochford Row Hospital in London in April 1914, when it was recorded that his service was two years and six months, indicating that he had joined the Irish Guards in November 1911. His age was given as twenty-one and his rank as Private. By 1918 he was Lance-Sergeant in the 2nd Battalion which had been formed in July 1915. The Irish Guards were deployed in France from the beginning of the war and took part in many of the major battles, Mons, Loos and Passchendaele. James was injured in 1915, having been shot in the arm, and spent some considerable time at home.

In June 1916 James married Susan Querney in Ballymun in Dublin. On the marriage certificate he declared he was a Corporal in the 2nd Battalion of the Irish Guards, with his residence as the ‘British Expeditionary Force, France’.

Susan’s address was ‘Santry Demesne’, which appears to be a number of houses surrounding Santry House, a palatial house built in 1703 and later owned by the Domville family, but falling into disrepair by the early twentieth century. Susan was third of the six living children of Edward and Martha Querney, originally from Queen’s County (Laois).

It became common during WW1 that soldiers would write a brief will, prior to deployment, giving the name and address of next of kin. James’s will named his aunt, Mrs J Young, Santry Demesne, and this was later changed to wife, Susan Brady, Santry Demesne. This suggests that Susan stayed with her family after their marriage, while James was in France. There appears to have been no children of the marriage. James was presumably returning from leave when he was sailing on RMS Leinster on 10 October 1918 and tragically, having survived four years of terrible war, he did not survive the sinking. His body was never recovered but his name is remembered on the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton.

Susan remarried in October 1922 to Matthew Byrne, also widowed. She was working then as a Domestic Servant in Shankill, Co Dublin and Matthew was also from that area.