weeks with the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front (14 August-19 September, 1914), from which he had been sent home wounded and possibly shell-shocked. Bowen-Colthurst had had a brief mental breakdown during the Retreat from Mons and he had initiated a disastrous, premature attack at the Battle of Aisnes. Aside from his wounds, this behaviour perhaps ensured he was sent home from the front permanently. After a period of convalescence and light duties, Bowen-Colthurst had been assigned in July 1915 to the Royal Irish Rifles at Portobello Barracks, where his primary duties were training and recruitment. About 10:30 in the evening of April 25, Captain Bowen-Colthurst took Sheehy Skeffington back out of the barracks, as a hostage in a raiding party. The raid was aimed at the tobacconist shop of Alderman James Kelly, a moderate "home rule" nationalist, whom Bowen-Colthurst had mistaken for a separatist of the same name, Alderman Tom Kelly. The raiding party consisted of an officer (Lieutenant Leslie Wilson) and 40 men led by Bowen-Colthurst, along with Sheehy Skeffington who had his hands tied behind his back. Before leaving the barracks, Bowen-Colthurst ordered Sheehy Skeffington to say his last prayers in case he might become a casualty, and when Sheehy Skefffington refused, Bowen-Colthurst said prayers on his behalf. The troops left the barracks and headed towards Rathmines Road, where they encountered three young men loitering opposite the Church of Mary Immaculate, Refuge of Sinners. On the pretext of the lateness of the hour and that martial law had been proclaimed, Bowen-Colthurst detained and interrogated them. He then impetuously shot one of them: a 19-year-old mechanic named James Coade. Coade was initially left in the road but later that evening, picked up and taken to Portobello Barracks infirmary, where he died early the next morning without regaining consciousness. Sheehy Skeffington witnessed the shooting. (Lieutenant Wilson later testified at the subsequent Royal Commission that he did not hear Sheehy Skeffington make any protest about it.) The party continued down the Lower Rathmines Road, and the soldiers stopped at the Portobello Bridge, where half of the men were left at a guardhouse along with Sheehy Skeffington. Bowen-Colthurst gave orders that the soldiers at the guardhouse were to monitor the further progress of the raiding party, and shoot Sheehy Skeffington if either his or their party came under attack from snipers. The soldiers made their way three hundred yards along