Violet Barratt of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD)
Left: A group of Kingstown VADs, among whom is Sophia Violet Barrett, although it is not known exactly which woman she is in this photograph.
Sophia Violet Barrett, known more commonly to her friends and close family as Violet, served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse during the First World War. An Irish woman, she was born in 1884, in Glenmaddy, County Galway, Ireland. She had one sister that is known of, named Elizabeth Armstrong after having married a Noble Armstrong in 1909.
Violet was the younger of the two sisters, and their father, Samuel Barrett was a Justice of the Peace. Therefore their family was well-respected in terms of social status, and Violet was surrounded by a strongly morally orientated family upbringing from a very young age.
She was witness to her father’s role in keeping justice in Ireland both prior to and during the war.
Perhaps this influence from her father may have had an impact on her decision to join the
VAD at the onset of the First World War. The VAD itself was a voluntary organisation that provided field nursing services, mainly in hospitals but also at casualty clearing stations and other required areas, both in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British
Empire who were part of the war. The organisation also provided aid in other areas, such as cooking, transportation and hygiene services, as shown on the poster to the left, which was a recruitment poster for the
VAD released during the First World War. The top of the poster also lists some of the areas of the VAD’s operation.
Although the organisation was not set up exclusively to provide wartime aid, its primary and most important periods of operation were during both of the World Wars.
Violet herself worked as a nurse for the VAD, and had returned home to Ireland for an unknown period of leave in October
1914, perhaps for a family reunion as she had been seen off at her departure at Kingstown by her sister Elizabeth. On her return to service in France, on the ship R.M.S Leinster, on the

10 th of October 1918, she met her unfortunate death. The Leinster was a Royal Mail Ship owned by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. It was torpedoed on the Irish Sea, 16 miles east of Dublin shortly before 10 a.m. It was on its outbound journey of 68 miles from
Kingstown to Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales. It seems surprising at first that a simple civilian services ship was torpedoed. However in reality by this point the war was dragging on and all participating countries were desperate in their attempts to gain any land, information or control. It is unknown why the ship was torpedoed, however it is likely that it was destroyed due to the fact that, being a mail ship, it could have been carrying important information or correspondence that perhaps “enemy” countries did not want to reach its intended recipient. It is also plausible that the ship was simply torpedoed for the sake of disrupting or destroying any vessel that did not belong to the attacking country or power.
Violet’s body was recovered and she was brought back to Carrickmines House on Saturday
12 th October 1918. She was interred on the 14 th of October 1918, when her coffin was borne in an ambulance to Kilternan Church near Dublin for burial. The cortege was headed by a mounted escort of Hussars (a specific sort of cavalry).
Upon her headstone was inscribed:
SOPHIA VIOLET
BARRATT
V.A.D.
St. John Ambulance Brigade younger daughter of
SAMUEL BARRETT J.P. of Ballintava, County of Galway whose four years’ war service closed the 10th October 1918 when returning to duty in France on R.M.S. Leinster torpedoed off the Irish Coast
As well as her burial, Violet and her services were commemorated in various other ways.
One of these was the inscription of her name onto the War Memorial at Tullow Church,
Brighton Road, Foxrock, Co.Dublin, as well as at the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton, which bears the names of those who were lost or buried at sea, or who died at home but whose bodies could not be recovered for burial. One of the many huge vessels whose dead are remembered here is the RSM Leinster on which Violet perished.