This is the true story of a farm lad from the lush green pastures of the Emerald Isle, who set out across the oceans in search of a new life. Set against the turbulent early years of the twentieth century, including the emergence of Irish Nationalism, O’Meara exchanged the rural tranquility of his birthplace in County Tipperary for the heat and hard labour of Western Australia, where he was a tree feller and hewer, involved in the production of millions of wooden sleepers for the expanding Australian railway network.
Like thousands of others, he answered the call and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, being sent first to Egypt for training and then on to the brutal mayhem of the Western Front. It was at the Battle of Mouquet Farm, during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, that he was awarded the Victoria Cross, not for acts of militaristic bravado, but for humanitarian work in rescuing the wounded at perilous danger to himself in the process.
stuartfifield.com 