Private Robert Gourley
Robert Gourley was born on 6 April 1891 at Toberoneill, Strabane, County Donegal, the fourth of nine children of farmer Robert Leckey Gourley and his wife Mary (née Smith). By the time of the 1911 Census he was living at Toberoneill with his parents and six of his siblings and working on the family farm.
Gourley enlisted in the North Irish Horse on 15 November 1915 (No.1884 – later Corps of Hussars No.71615). He trained at the regiment's Antrim reserve camp before embarking for France sometime between 1916 and 1918, where he was posted to one of the squadrons of the 1st North Irish Horse Regiment. This regiment served as corps cavalry to VII, XIX, then V Corps from its establishment in May 1916 until February-March 1918, when it was dismounted and converted to a cyclist unit, serving as corps cyclists to V Corps until the end of the war.
Gourley remained with the regiment throughout the war, though how much time he spent in France and Belgium and how much at the Antrim reserve camp is not known at present.
On 18 February 1919 he was discharged as 'surplus to military requirements, having suffered impairment since entry into the service' (paragraph 392 xvi(a), King's Regulations).
After the war Gourley returned to Toberoneill and resumed farming. On 5 June 1923 he married Mary Jane Elizabeth McKean in the St Johnston Presbyterian Church, County Donegal.