GALLANT ANTRIM MEN
WAR MEMORIAL HALL AT CASTLECATT
Opened by Captain Lyle
[Friday, November 19, 1926]
There was an interesting ceremony yesterday at Castlecatt, near Bushmills, when a hall, provided at a cost of over £1,400, in memory of the men from the district who made the supreme sacrifice and others who served in the great war, was opened by Captain Sydney J Lyle MC, Ballycastle.
Over the principal entrance is the inscription in relief - "In Memory, 1914-1918." Mr Albert McMaster, Ballymoney was the architect, and the contractors were Messrs Cochrane & Elliott, Portrush.
THE LEADING SPIRIT
Mrs Denny has been the leading light in the movement from the beginning, enthusiastically backed by her husband and other residents in the district. Aleady about £800 has been raised, and Mrs Denny hopes, by means of entertainments and other schemes, to secure the balance. In Castlecatt a basket-making industry, of which Mrs Denny was the pioneer, is carried on, and the profits from this are to be devoted to the Building Fund of the new hall until such time as the debt has been cleared off.
Mr Albert McMaster, the architect, presented a silver key to Captain Lyle. Rev Samuel McCully, Bushmills, led the singing of "Land of Hope and Glory," Mrs Denny presiding at the piano.
Colonel W S Traill DSO, who presided, said the hall would remind everyone of what they went through in the days of the war. It had been built, as they all knew, through the energy of his sister, Mrs Denny. Through her and their own exertion - because everyone has helped - they had now a hall for themselves. It was only right that Capt Lyle, who was so intimately connected with the the men who served from that district, should open the hall.
A PROUD OFFICER
Captain Lyle said he had been very closely associated with North Antrim men who served during the war. He had command of a company known as the North Antrim Company of the 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, which was recruited entirely from that district. Something like 400 men joined the company, and though that was not by any meansall that served from North Antrim it was a large proportion. Without boasting of the company he would say that he had every reason to be proud of it. Since they went out in 1915 he could not think of a big battle where the North Antrim men were not present. At the Somme - where Sir Harry Macnaghten, Bushmills, lost his life - at Ypres, Messines, and Cambrai the company lost heavily in officers and men. After that, unfortunately, the supply of troops from North Antrim became exhausted, and the company, more or less, lost its identity, and reserves had to be drafted in from different parts of Great Britain. The battalion to which the company was attached was one of the two battalions of the Ulster Division which remained intact and went to Cologne after the armistice. The graves of the men of North Antrim from one end of of the British front to the other in France and Flanders.
Thanks to Captain Lyle and to all who had helped towards the erection of the hall were expressed by Mrs Denny. They hoped shortly to have tablets provided in the hall giving the names of the fallen and of all from the district who served. Those men had set a splendid example of devotion to duty.
[Published 20 November 1926 - Northern Whig and Belfast Post]
