by Fortunino Matania
A sergeant-major said of Fr. Gleeson:
He said Mass for us on Christmas Day, actually in the firing line. Where he had his little alter was peppered with bullets. He is a grand priest and knows no fear. He is never finished doing all in his power for everyone, even those who are not of the same religion. …Nothing gives him greater pleasure than saying Mass in the open, in cold and wet, or hearing confessions in some old barn that has been half blown away by German shell fire.
Before going into battle at Rue du Bois on 9 May 1915, when it again suffered fearful casualties, the battalion received the last absolution from Fr Gleeson and sang the Te Deum. Published in the Christmas edition of The Sphere, Mantania’s painting of the incident soon became one of the most famous pictures of the war. When it was reproduced a year later in the Weekly Freeman it was framed and hung on the walls of many private homes, especially in Munster. Private soldiers from Limerick recorded how, during the battle, Fr Gleeson ‘stuck to his post, attending to the wounded and dying Munsters…shells dropping all around him’.
History Ireland - The Royal Munster Fusiliers
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