Private Alfred Roland O'Shaughnessy
Alfred Roland O'Shaughnessy was born on 9 June 1892 in the Military Barracks at Armagh, County Armagh, the third or fourth of six children of Royal Irish Fusiliers sergeant James O'Shaughnessy and his English-born wife Mary (née Goddard). His father died before he was ten years old. By the time of the 1901 Census he and his two brothers were living as student-boarders at the Meath Protestant Industrial School in Blackrock, Dublin. Ten years later he was living at 2.4 Morgan Place, Inns Quay, Dublin, with his mother and his four surviving siblings, and working as a book-maker.
O'Shaughnessy enlisted in the North Irish Horse between 13 and 16 December 1915 (No.2039 – later Corps of Hussars No.71678). He trained at the regiment's Antrim reserve camp before embarking for France sometime between 1916 and 1918, where he was posted to one of the squadrons of the 1st North Irish Horse Regiment. This regiment served as corps cavalry to VII, XIX, then V Corps from its establishment in May 1916 until February-March 1918, when it was dismounted and converted to a cyclist unit, serving as corps cyclists to V Corps until the end of the war.
O'Shaughnessy remained with the regiment throughout the war. On 21 February 1919 he was demobilised and transferred to Class Z, Army Reserve.
By 1923 O'Shaughnessy was living at 15 Arbutus Place, Dublin, and working as a shoemaker. On 20 May that year he married Anne Harrington in St Audoen's Roman Catholic Church.
Note: The Medal Index Card and Medal Rolls give his name as Albert O'Shaughnessy.