Born near Thurles in North Tipperary in 1885 John Maher worked as a stonemason in the early 1900s when he married Bridget Stapleton (b. c. 1885). By 1911 they had four children aged 6 and under. John was friends with his brother-in-law Robert who was also in the British Army.
Although family lore tells us they joined up together they were assigned to two different regiments, John to the Royal Irish Regiment and Robert to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Assigment seems to have been simply done 'That line of 50 men are Royal Irish...that line of 50 Royal Dublin...'.
Neither John nor Robert survived their deployment to France and the story of John's military career will be explored here.
