This box was made by an Irishman who was captured fighting on the side of the Boers during the Second South African War which took place between 1899 and 1902. There were thousands of Irishmen fighting on the British side and other Irish who fought for the Boers. The British won the war, led by Field Marshal Lord Roberts (from the Roberts Family of Waterford). However, thousands of Boer women and children were held in many concentration camps established by Lord Kitchener and over 26,000 died, marking this as a shameful episode in British colonial history. It is important to say that many thousands of Irish were enthusiastic participants within the colonial empire.
A number of Irish who fought for the Boers were
captured at the end of the war and imprisoned in various camps. One of these
was a Mr O’Haughie who carved this box at Bellary Camp in India which housed
over 800 men and operated between May 1901 and August 1902.
He made the collection box as a gift for a Father
MacNamara of Madras in September 1901. The box is carved on five sides:
1.
(Top)September 1901-Bellary Camp India
2.
From O’Haughie Boer POW
3.
To Rev MacNamara Madras
4.
Transbhaal Abu – The coat of arms of the South African
republic or Transvaal and a portrait of the President Paul Kruger.
5.
Eire Go Brath -Harp, shamrocks with red hand of Ulster
above
Prof Donal McCracken has indicated that the O’Haughie
referred to is one James O’Haughey of Derrynoose, south Armagh. He suggests
that having fought for a brief period with Colonel Blake and Major John
MacBride he was captured during the retreat eastwards along the railway line
from Pretoria towards Komatipoort. The recipient of the box was Rev T. F.
MacNamara who was a Mill Hill missionary priest in St Mary’s College Madras and
was probably sent as chaplain to the pow camp. His
father Michael was believed to have worked as a butler at Dromana House, the
home of the Villiers-Stuart family.
Boer War Box