John Ramsay FitzGibbon Hall Second Lieutenant, 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers

In Memory of
Second Lieutenant JOHN RAMSAY FITZGIBBON HALL

2nd Bn., Royal Dublin Fusiliers
who died age 21
on 24 May 1915
Son of Mr. and Mrs. I. FitzGibbon Hall, of The National Bank House, Cork.

Remembered with honour
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL

Ramsay Hall was a particularly brave young man. Some quotes from his fellow soldiers testify not just to his courage, but to his popularity as a person: ‘He was esteemed and loved by everyone,’ and ‘I do not think a better fellow was ever in the regiment.’

A priest, who knew Hall well, wrote this about him -
Ramsay would not pass a wounded man without seeing that he was in the way of being picked up, dragging them out of drains and water and in from fields to lay them on the road for the ambulance parties. He kept me once under a pretty ugly rifle and machine-gun fire for about ten minutes searching for someone he could hear breathing. We got him and pulled him out.

Ramsay Hall was born on 29 August 1893. His father (John) was a manager for the National Bank, so that the family had to move from town to town, as Mr Hall was transferred from one branch to another. Before he came to Belvedere, Ramsay Hall was educated at the Bower, Athlone and later by a private tutor. He came to Belvedere on 11 May 1908, at the age of 14, when the family lived ‘over the shop’ at National Bank House in Sackville Street, now O’Connell Street.

Ramsay was an accomplished swimmer; in 1910 he was on the four-man team which won the ‘Senior Squadron Championship of Belvedere’.

When he left school he went to Trinity. He had ambitions of making a profession in the army. He joined the Officer Training Corps at Trinity and got his commission with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers a year before the out-break of the war.

He was sent to Belgium early in the war. Here he was involved in some ferocious battles. Although he was a lieutenant he was working in the role of Captain. He was in command of ‘B’ Company a month before he died.

His death was described as ‘sad but glorious’. It was on 24 May 1915. At the start of that evening the trench in which Hall and his men were posted was gassed. But they didn’t budge. Then they came under heavy shrapnel and machine gun fire. Their stubbornness kept them in place and allowed them make progress. There was a huge number of casualties that evening, and only one of the group survived until 1916. Of Hall it was written that ‘he died a death he would have wished.’ He was only 21.

Ramsay Hall has no known grave. He is commemorated at the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres in Belgium.