Private Patrick Joseph Casey
Patrick Joseph Casey was born on 1 November 1884 at Spring Farm, Antrim, the first of at least four children of sea captain Robert Casey and his wife Mary Elizabeth (née Meenan). Following the death of his mother in 1897, Patrick and his siblings were raised by her family at Ballycraigy, County Antrim. By the time of the 1911 Census he was living at 24 Antrim Road, Belfast, at the home of his cousin Margaret Meenan, and working as a commercial traveller in dentistry.
By 1914 he was living at 2 Roseberry Terrace, Ballymena, and working as a dentist (unqualified). On 4 February that year he married book-seller's daughter Margaret Dargan at the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Family, Belfast. The couple had two children over the next three years.
Casey enlisted in the North Irish Horse in 1915 or 1916 (regimental number not known). He trained at the regiment's Antrim reserve camp until November 1916, when he and around 100 other North Irish Horsemen volunteered to transfer to the Royal Irish Rifles. The formal transfer took place on 7 December (Casey was issued regimental number 40859), and on that day the men embarked for France. There they were posted to the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, joining it on the Somme front on 12 December.
He must have been wounded, fallen ill, or for other reasons been found unfit for front-line service, for in late September 1917 he was transferred to the Labour Corps (No.119420) and posted to No.200 Labour Company.
Casey was discharged on 31 March 1920. He was granted a pension, his level of disability assessed at 30 per cent in September 1922.
After the war Casey lived with his family at Carrickfergus. He died on 15 February 1930 at the Craigavon Hospital, Belmont, Belfast.