
Today in 1916 was the final day of the Somme Offensive and men from Ballycastle, Ballymena, and Whitehead died. Roughly 3,500 men from all over Ireland died in this battle. Charles Allen from Dervock died this day in 1914 with the Irish Guards. Ballymena born with family links in Belfast, and Dervock. He is remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Billy Parish Church, and Ballymoney WM. There is a Memorial Plaque in Templecorran Church which bears the regimental insignia of the Prince of Wales; North Staffordshire Regiment. It was unveiled in October 1918, only a month before the end of the war and in memory of John Adams who had been the Rector’s Churchwarden of the Parish. On this day in 1941 Eoin McGonigal (Photo) a RUR and SAS officer died following a raid on airfields in North Africa. He was a member of a leading Irish legal family. A Catholic, he was educated at Clongowes Wood College, Co.Kildare, and Queen’s University, Belfast. He was the brother of Sir Ambrose McGonigal MC (RUR).