of the Liverpool Irish selected for this desperate
enterprise had an ideal leader in Captain Herbert Finegan, dashing,
combative, and resolute. The son of the late Dr. J.H. Finegan, a
well-known Irish physician in Liverpool, he was educated at
Stonyhurst, had a brilliant career at Liverpool University, and, with
his uncommon gifts of mind and tongue, seemed destined for distinction
in the law courts and the House of Commons, when war broke out and
diverted him to a wholly different arena of activity. He was given
charge of the attack. His company was the first over the parapets.
"Come on, Irish. Show them what we can do!" he cried in his impetuous
way as he thrust forward his head menacingly towards the German lines.
When the men were out of the trenches, a sergeant of the company
exclaimed, "It's sure death, boys, but remember we are Irish." He was
immediately blown to bits. The Germans, seeing the movement, met it by
scourging the advancing lines with shell fire.

Lord Wolseley has said that almost every officer who has led a
storming party across the open in full view of the enemy would
acknowledge that his one anxiety from first to last was, "Will my men
follow me?" Captain Finegan had no misgiving of the kind. He did not
need to look over his shoulder to see if his men had rallied to his
cry. They pressed round him as he ran across the open, these Liverpool
Irish, most of whom had never seen Ireland, and yet were as eager to
maintain her reputation for valour as the Irish Guards, the Munsters,
the Dublins, or the Connaught Rangers, born and reared at home. Capt.
Finegan was shot dead at the edge of the German trenches. Fired by
this example, the men pressed onward, and did not stop or stay even
when they had done what they had set out to do. "It was a job to make
them come back when we got the order to retire," said one of the
officers.

The forlorn hope had unexpectedly blossomed into a victory. The
Liverpool Irish took a German trench for themselves, along with
helping the French to make a rapid advance which resulted in the
capture of three miles of trenches of the enemy's lines. They got
congratulations on their achievement from the commander, Sir Henry
Rawlinson. Many of them shared the fate of their gallant leader. It
was a fate that Capt. Finegan had anticipated. "I will either go home
with the Victoria Cross, or stay here with a wooden one," he once
remarked to Sergeant MacCabe, of his company.

At Fest