A Methodist, he was divided by religion from his neighbours in County Louth: but that did not stop them from putting this prosperous and capable farmer, working his land on the most modern methods, into the Chair of their County Council.

Before the war, when the Larne gun-running took place, he decided that matters looked serious, called his friends together and formed a company of Volunteers, who might be needed to protect themselves or to protect other Nationalists across the adjacent Ulster border.

After the war had broken out and the Home Rule Act was passed, and Redmond had launched his appeal, this country farmer, then aged fifty, made his way to Mallow and asked General Parsons to accept him as a recruit.

He was accepted, and very shortly given a commission in the Dublin Fusiliers.

Out of his local Volunteers he took seventy-five into the Army with him.