About The Author

My name is Stephen McCafferty, married to Deborah and father to nine children. I started my research on my grandfather Albert Boyd about 25 years ago, back then there was no internet, so everything was very slow when it came to getting information on Albert and many a day I was very disappointed after going through hours of old newspapers at the Derry Library.
.

.

But when you did find some information, I can only describe it like a detective solving a murder, everything you found lead you to more information. With help from relatives, my Granda on the rare occasion he might talk about the war and through the small pieces of information I managed to get information on Albert and his brothers.
.
This research is for me about the facts of my early life and how living with my Granda Albert shaped my own life. Ever since I have been interested in books or documentaries on the First World War.
.
After years of research I can personally say the start of the First World War was an exciting time for many a young man from Rosemount in Derry and Ireland, although when Albert joined he was a very young boy and back then a lot of regiments had drummer boys, that’s how Albert got in so young. Rumour has it he was only 15 and I would believe that as he was in the army before the war started.
.
Unfortunately for some the war has been infected by the politics in Ireland so just like Germany the war is better not talked about. Some will see it as a British war, or will say it had nothing to do with Ireland’s future, as the Home Rule bill was being debated in Ireland at the time.
.
But no matter what side we see ourselves, the fact is 15,000 Protestant and Catholic soldiers gave their lives in that war, and that affected thousands of families in many towns in Ireland North and South. Let us not forget the tens of thousands injured or maimed who had their lives destroyed.
.
At the time people didn’t understand the great changes this war was going to bring, this was a unique war, it was a war where the old ways of warfare met the modern weapons of the time. From then on countries learned fast how to adapt to the new methods of warfare, from wearing soft hats at the start of the war which caused thousands of horrific injuries and deaths from overhead shell fire.
.
The rush to invent steel helmets was just one of the many changes to modern warfare.
It was also the first war where chemical weapons where used.
.
The ten million dead wasn,t just the only cost of the First World War, to a lesser degree empires fell,countries where bankrupt .And World War Two was really just the unfinnished business of World War one
.
This website is all about Albert Boyd and his struggle through and after the war.