Joe Little completed his Intermediate Examinations at
Belvedere in 1906 and his results appeared in The Belvederian of 1907. They not only illustrate the range of
subjects that the boys at the school were studying in the early-twentieth
century, but we also learn, particularly here, of Joe’s strengths. His results
were:
Honours—English Literature and Composition
Pass—Arithmetic, Latin, History & Geography,
French, Algebra, Science second year
Joe
used his talents in debating and in 1909 he was among nineteen boys to found
the Belvedere College Debating Society.
In
his early military career, Little was first with the Sherwood Foresters in
Sunderland. While there, he experienced an air raid. In August, 1915, he
decided to join the regular army and entered the Royal Military Academy at
Sandhurst. He passed out of Sandhurst in November, 1915, and became attached to
the Royal Irish Regiment then stationed at Richmond Barracks in Dublin.
In
April, 1916, four hundred and three men of the 3rd Royal Irish
Regiment were stationed at Richmond Barracks engaged in the training of
recruits. Of these, one hundred officers and men were kept at the ready, to be
mobilised rapidly if needed.
Albert
George Fletcher Desborough, part of the battalion’s men on alert, recalled
Easter Monday morning:
There [the barracks square of Richmond Barracks], we
were told that the Sinn Feiners were out in strength, had taken over strategic
positions in the city. It meant fighting, for they had to be ejected, as they
carried arms and were supplied with ammunition. These men we were told, meant
to defy the viceregal Authority and were determined to fight it out.
The
battalion was ordered the proceed with caution towards Dublin Castle, but were
met with fire from the 4th Battalion Irish Volunteer positions at
and around the South Dublin Union. As the history of the regiment, The Campaigns and History of the Royal Irish
Regiment, recounted, soon afterwards ‘the main body from the barracks
joined the picquet and Colonel Owens [battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel
Robert Owens] planned an attack on the [South Dublin] Union, two companies making
a flank attack by way of the Grand Canal’. They met with fire from the Irish
Volunteers outpost at the distillery at Marrowbone Lane which halted their
progress.
On
Tuesday morning, the battalion occupied the vicinity of Kingsbridge (now
Heuston) station. By evening however, they were marching towards Trinity
College and thereafter engaged the GPO garrison for the remainder of the week
from barricades and rooftops. Desborough recalled Dublin as it was that week:
Dublin was a deserted and battered city, as far as the
streets were concerned. Every private citizen was behing [sic.] closed door,
and those to be seen in the streets were those in uniform, or snipers
occasionally on the roof-tops. The only sounds, stamping, heavy feet, a command
and an occasional crack of a rifle.
On
27 April, along with the 5th Leinsters, 2/6th Sherwood Foresters and the Ulster
composite battalion, the 3rd Royal Irish Regiment, successfully
formed a cordon around the rebels in the Sackville Street area. This strategic
manoeuvre was completed with few losses.
The Belvederian
of 1916 recorded that Little ‘was through the fighting in connection with the rising in
Dublin, and remained unhurt, while several brother-officers were killed’.
Although his sphere(s) of activity are not specified, those of his regiment
outlined above are the most likely to have involved Little during Easter week,
1916.
It was the 3rd Royal Irish Regiment that
marched the surrendered GPO garrison to the Rotunda on Saturday evening and
later on to Richmond Barracks. As Desborough later recalled:
Amidst the roar and glare from
the bombarded G.P.O., the Gresham Hotel, and Y.M.C.A. rooms and other
buildings, the shouts and commands of many voices, how the defenders of the
G.P.O. surrendered and were taken and laced between files of the 3rd Royal
Irish Reg, with fixed bayonets, disarmed, and put into the Rotunda Hospital
until the time came for them to be escorted to Richmond Barracks at Inchicore.
The rebellion in Dublin came
to an end, but Joe Little was to move on to the continental Great War. Little
joined his regiment in the trenches during the month of May, 1916. The Royal
Irish Regiment were transferred to trenches at Kemmel in Flanders. The
regiment’s history recorded the following:
On the 29th a raid, planned and directed by Major E.
Roche-Kelly, was carried out on the German trenches and was entirely
successful. Our casualties were two men killed, 2nd Lieutenant J. P. Corcoran
severely wounded and captured, 2nd Lieutenant J. J. Little and thirteen men
wounded and two men missing —probably killed.
The Belvederian
of 1917 reported that Little ‘was in the Somme battles’. It informed its
readers that Little had been wounded severely in the left arm with one of his
bones being broken. Following this assault and his injuries, Little was
invalided home to recover and was, as of summer 1917, making ‘rapid progress
towards recovery’.
