nd on which in
life and in death he had shed additional lustre.

Yours, etc.,
J.G. SWIFT MACNEILL.

DUBLIN, _March 20th, 1915_.

(_From the_ "_Irish Telegraph_," _March 20th, 1915._)

R.I. RIFLES ENGAGED.

LIEUT.-COLONEL LAURIE KILLED.

OTHER REGIMENTAL LOSSES.

Information reached Belfast yesterday that Lieutenant-Colonel George
Brenton Laurie, commanding the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, was
killed in action, near Neuve Chapelle, last Sunday. The deceased
officer was exceedingly well known in Belfast, where he commanded the
Rifles Depot for three years, and the news of his demise has been
received with sorrow at Victoria Barracks. He was closely connected by
marriage with the North of Ireland.

COLONEL LAURIE'S MILITARY CAREER.

Lieutenant-Colonel George Brenton Laurie, Commanding Officer of the
1st Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, who has died a soldier's death at
the head of the gallant 83rd, will long be remembered by the old
corps, in which he spent thirty years. He was the author of the
splendid "History of the Royal Irish Rifles" which was issued last
year, and dedicated by him to the regiment on the 125th anniversary of
the raising of the 83rd and 86th Foot, now the 1st and 2nd Battalions
of the Rifles. He considered the writing of that history, which runs
into 540 pages, a fitting close to his career in the regiment, but he
remained on in the Service, and the unexpected European War has made
it otherwise, and now he has ended his career on the field of battle.
The closing words of his preface were:--

"May the officers and men of the Royal Irish Rifles win yet more
laurels for their regiment by their staunchness whenever their
Sovereign calls for their services in war!"

When Colonel Laurie penned those words last spring, he little dreamt
that within a few short months the officers and men of both the 83rd
and 86th would be shedding their life's blood freely in France, and
now he himself has made the supreme sacrifice, and with Captains
Master, Reynolds, Davis, Kennedy, Stevens, Allgood, Whelan, Miles,
Biscoe, Lieutenants Rea, Whitfield, Burges, and Tyndall,
Second-Lieutenants Magenis, Davy, Gilmore, Swaine, and Eldred--many of
them his old comrades--sleeps his last long sleep in a foreign grave.

The son of a soldier (the late General Laurie), Colonel Laurie
received his first commission