209225 L/Cpl. Michael Canning British Army 7th (Service) Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers from:Dublin (d.9th Aug 1915) Michael Canning was born in Dublin in 1877. His father worked as a foreman in the forwarding department of Guinness' at St James Gate in Dublin. He and his family lived at various addresses around Thomas Court in the Liberties of Dublin. At an early age his mother died. Shortly afterwards his father was laid off by Guinness for being drunk on the job. It seems that his father struggled to cope with raising five children alone and he put the children into care. By the age of sixteen Michael and his siblings were formally orphaned when his father died in a workshouse in Dublin. At eighteen, Michael signed up with the Royal Inniskillng Fusiliers in Omagh and shortly thereafter was sent to India where he served in the Tirah Campaign. While in India his younger sister was picked up for begging on the streets in Dublin. She was admitted to care and on admission was described as being blind. Michael Canning served in India and what is now Afghanistan for a number of years before his battalion was posted to South Africa near the end of the Boer War. Shortly after arriving in Africa his record lists him as being imprisoned for an unspecified crime. He appears to have been in the same prison as 'Breaker Morant' just two weeks after Morant was executed. After three months in prison he returned to service. At the end of the Boer War the 2nd Inniskilling were posted to Egypt where he spent the next six years. He eventually returned to Ireland around 1912 and tried to return to civilian life. His family in Dublin had all moved on so he moved to Limerick where his brother Lawrence had relocated and was working on the railway.
At the outbreak of World War One, Michael Canning reinlisted in the British Army in Limerick and joined the newly formed Royal Munster Fusiliers 7th Service Battalion. Due to his prior service he was given the slightly elevated rank of Lance Corporal. The 7th Munsters trained in Mallow and in Basingstoke in the UK before embarking by sea to take part in the efforts at Gallipoli. Following a short stop off at Mudros in Greece, he arrived on the shores of Gallipoli as part of the August offensive on 7th August 1915.
Michael Canning was my great uncle. He died within a couple of days on the beaches of Turkey. His body was not recovered. We don't have a photo or his medals but we have rediscovered and researched his story which was lost to the family for a number of years. He is remembered on Helles Memorial at Gallipoli.
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