MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT |
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MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | |
| PATRICK O'DALY 1876 - |
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| Patrick O'Daly was one of many Conscientious Objectors who held several grounds for objecting to war and conscription. While working as a gardener at the Botanic Gardens, Kew, he applied for exemption as a Conscientious Objector at the Brentford Tribunal. His hearing was in late June 1916, having avoided call-up earlier due to his age - at 40, he was near to the extreme end of the age range Conscripted under the Military Service Act 1916. He made his stand on several grounds, stating that "I am a Catholic, an Irishman and a Socialist, and hold all war to be organised slaughter and commercial rivalry". His application was for absolute exemption, and he made it clear that he would not accept any compromise, seeing his then employment as the most useful service he could offer to the country. His Tribunal was unsympathetic, possibly due to the fact that it was manned largely by Patrick's "political opponents" as he remarked he had "been a rival with two of the members for a seat on the council" and had publicly disagreed with them on matters of local and imperial politics. Given these conditions, it's unsurprising that Patrick's application for exemption was rejected. His uncompromising resistance to militarism led him from arrest, to court martial to prison, where he would remain for the rest of the war.
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