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Title:	Passchendaele: Exhibition panel commemorating Robert Christopher Butler, born Rathcoole
Authors:	Power, David Power, David
Keywords:	Third Ypres Passchendaele
Issue Date:	2018
Description:	Robert Christopher Butler was born in Rathcoole. His early years are unclear as his birth does not appear in the birth records of the area, and he does not appear in any Irish census records. His personal effects, after his death, were sent to his mother whose name appears in official records as Catherine Hayes. The different surname points perhaps to his being adopted. We do know he enlisted in Dublin, joining the 4th (Queen's Own) Hussars in at least 1913. This was a mounted regiment which counted Winston Churchill among its ranks in the late 1800s. Butler is recorded as having been court-martialled in the Curragh on the 24th of February 1913 for desertion and loss of army property. He was sentenced to 28 days’ detention. He joined the British Expeditionary Force with his unit at the outset of the war and transferred on the 11th of October 1917 to the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. They became involved in the 3rd Ypres actions and 19 days after his transfer, on the 30th of October 1917, he was killed in action in the fighting near Polderhoek Chateau. The chateau provided an ideal location for enemy sniping and cover for German machine guns. It was taken and retaken by both sides in all three battles of Ypres. By 1917 it had been reduced to rubble.
URI:	https://hdl.handle.net/10599/12145
Copyright:	South Dublin Libraries
Appears in Collections:	Published Items World War I Exhibitions

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