What is an Irishman doing being buried in a small Norfolk seaside village? A long story.
William Fagan was born in County Offally 1887. He took the Kings Shilling (when?) and enlisted in the Connaught Rangers. He was sent to the 2nd Battalion, then in Garrison at Aldershot. So it was that he was mobilised and landed in France on 18th August 1914. Part of the 2nd Division of the 1st Corps BEF, It was the night of 25th August before the Connaughts saw action but it was a nasty night attack which cost them 300 men.Thereafter they retreated with the rest of the army, but not taking any real losses until they stood on the Marne and beat the Germans back to Flanders.
It was tough. It was bloody. By the time that the Connaughts stood in the line outside Ypres that first wet autumn of the war there were perhaps about 100 men left. During the skirmishes and the artillery fire fights through those wet, dripping woods and flooded ditches and dykes of late October William was blown up by a shell. He received severe chest and leg wounds and became so traumatised that he became detached from his mind (shellshock). His war was over. And less than a month later, with only 19 men left, the 2nd Battalion was absorbed into the 1st Battalion, just back from India.
William went from one military hospital to another. He spent time in the asylum at Maghill Hospital, Merseyside and is shown to be on the strength of the Kings Regiment. In July 1916 he was finally discharged from service. He was not in his right mind. He returned to Ireland. Ireland post the Easter 1916 Rising was not the land he had left as a young man. And even in his Navy Blue serge convalescence uniform William was not a hero to his fellow Irishmen. Rather, he was despised, spat at, worse.
William was not a well man. His psyche was very fragile. Too fragile to cope with 'real life'. By the time his daughter, my mum was born in 1927 it was obvious that William needed to be in an asylum for his own protection. It is entirely possible that William was a Pensioner Inmate of the Royal Naval Hospital, Great Yarmouth by the early 1930's.
The RN Hospital, Great Yarmouth was established in 1881 as the Lunatic Asylum of the Naval Medical services. Then it was filled with Matelots and officers who had lost their minds through alcohol abuse or Venereal Disease. During the War it began taking a new and at that time misunderstood phenomena - 'shell shock' victims. By the end of the war nearly all the wards of the RN hospital were full of the so called 'intractable' shell shock cases. Other centres that dealt with shell shock had good records for successfuk treatment. Maghill was one such place and I assume that the doctors must have felt at one time that William was amenable to treatment. But alas...
Right through to the end of the hospital, in 1962, there were two whole wards that housed shell shocked veterans of the great war. William Fagan, Private, Connaught Rangers, died on 23rd June 1957. He was 70 years of age.
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