by Frank Farragher

A Bohermore man was posthumously remembered this week at a poignant medal presentation ceremony in the United States’ Dublin Embassy.

Paddy Casserly, from Grealishtown, a former hurler with Liam Mellows GAA club who was affectionately known to his friends as ‘Nine’, left the city as a 19-years-old back in early 1950 to work in Boston.

He arrived under the care of his two grand-aunts in Boston, and shortly after got ‘fixed up’ with work in the US city, but his life was to change on June 25, 1950, when the Korean War broke out.

The following year, he was conscripted into the American army and after completing his training, he subsequently went on a number of tours of duty as gunner with a US artillery unit, and officially fighting under the flag of the United Nations.

Paddy, a son of the late Peter and Celia, survived the war unscathed and subsequently made a good life for himself in Boston, being a popular member of the Irish community and playing hurling for a number of years with the local club.

A single man who worked in Harvard University for many years, he took ill and died on February 1, 1980, at the age of 49 – his family brought him home to Galway and he was buried in the New Cemetery, Bohermore.

Earlier this Spring, his sister Celia Fleming, who now lives in Cregboy, Claregalway, received an official form from the US, requesting some details about Paddy’s time in America.

Last Tuesday, along with 10 other veterans of the war or their representatives, she was presented with a bronze commemorative medal to mark the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

The delay in the US honouring of Korean war veterans is thought to have centred on a protocol issue, as technically the soldiers were fighting under the United Nations flag.

“It was a very emotional day especially when the US ambassador pinned Paddy’s meal onto my jacket. An awful lot of happy memories came flooding back – he was an older brother and I was very close to him,” Celia said.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.