Elaine Byrne: Remembering the sacrifices of Fusiliers at Hulluch

My great-grandfather was there and survived...only to suffer

Sylvester Cummins

Three days after Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic at the GPO, 538 Irish soldiers died in the small French village of Hulluch.

On Thursday, April 27, 1916, at 4.45am, a slight easterly breeze carried contents of 3,800 cylinders of chlorine gas from the German lines across no man’s land and into the trenches of the 16th Irish Division.

The slowly drifting yellow-green clouds smelled like pineapple and pepper. It ...