Henry Chavasse obituary: Decorated soldier and voice of the Dungarvan Show

Henry Perceval Kendal (Hal) Chavasse 
Born: September 22nd, 1933 
Died: February 21st, 2022

Henry Chavasse, or Hal as he was widely known, was a respected farmer and forestry manager in his native west Waterford, where he was for many years a diligent organiser and treasurer of the annual Dungarvan Show. He retired from the position – which was voluntary – in 2019 having been literally the voice of the show, announcing the events every year from the late 1980s until he stepped down three years ago.

At his funeral service in February, the committee members of the show formed a guard of honour for his remains.

Before turning his hand to farming the family farm at Cappagh House near Dungarvan, Chavasse had a long and distinguished military career which culminated in his appointment as British military attaché firstly in Mexico, covering also Panama (1977-1980), and then in Columbia (1980-1983).

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The former appointment included negotiating the passage through the Panama Canal of the Royal Yacht Britannia, and a visit to Veracruz, the main port on the eastern Mexican coast, of the Royal Navy guided missile destroyer HMS Sheffield, later to be sunk during the Falklands War with Argentina of 1982, Britain’s major naval loss in that conflict.

This had a certain resonance later in Columbia; in Mexico, Chavasse had enjoyed good relations with the Argentinian military attaché, each attending the other’s receptions and mingling freely in the diplomatic corps in Mexico City. In Bogota, however, Chavasse and his Argentinian counterpart had to studiously ignore each other.

From a very traditional Anglo-Irish background the Chavasse family adapted to the changes brought about by Irish independence. His father, Kendal Chavasse, was instrumental in starting the local branch of Macra na Feirme in the late 1940s.

Chavasse's subsequent career in the Army, if not quite as dramatic as the Gough Barracks episode, was nonetheless colourful and eventfu

Loyal to a very long family tradition, Chavasse joined the British army, being commissioned into the Royal Irish Fusiliers in the early 1950s, after schooling, in England, at Wellington College.

At that time, the regiment had a depot at Gough Barracks, Armagh. It was there, early in September 1958, that Chavasse, aged just 24, accompanied by his commanding officer, a Major Baxter, took a bomb planted by the IRA in the barracks out of the depot in an Army truck. They drove into the middle of a field half a mile away where it was eventually dismantled by an Army bomb squad, and the gelignite used as the explosive material was blown up. For this extraordinarily nerveless act of courage, Major Baxter was awarded the George Medal, and Chavasse an MBE.

Chavasse’s subsequent career in the Army, if not quite as dramatic as the Gough Barracks episode, was nonetheless colourful and eventful. On secondment to the King’s African Rifles in Uganda in 1961, he played rugby on the regimental team, one of whose forwards was an NCO called Idi Amin, who also babysat for the Chavasse family on at least one occasion. Amin, of course, would later become the notorious dictator of that country.

Other service included a spell in Singapore when Britain still had a major base there, and back in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, in Ballymena from 1973-1975 at the new depot of what had by then become the Royal Irish Rangers regiment, which had replaced the Royal Irish Fusiliers in 1968 after its merger with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and the Royal Ulster Rifles. The Rangers, probably for political reasons, were not then deployed in the Northern conflict.

On leaving the Army, Chavasse returned to Cappagh House. The farm had been bought in 1944 by Chavasse’s mother, Oonah (nee Maxwell), while her husband was away serving with the British army during the second World War, from the Ussher family, one of whom was the Irish language scholar Arland Ussher, who was also a regular contributor to The Irish Times from before the second World War until the late 1960s, and author of a notable reflection on his native land, The Face and Mind of Ireland (Gollanz, 1949).

Chavasse took up the job of forestry manager at Lismore Castle estate. He had little or no experience of forestry when he started the job, which also involved running the estate’s sawmill, but he built it up nonetheless into a successful business over 19 years.

Chavasse’s wife, Claire (nee Crozier), an occupational therapist and a noted beekeeper in her own right, predeceased him. He is survived by their three sons, Charles, Daniel and Desmond, and his sister, Anne Cottam.