One of the features of the British Army has always been that people tended to join a Regiment in their local area, along with all their friends. Consequently when a Regiment or Battalion suffered heavy losses it impacted most dramatically on the families at home. During the First World War in the likes of the Battle of the Somme etc, you got whole streets where every household had someone who had been killed. It might seem wiser to scatter new recruits across the whole army. On the other hand people liked fighting alongside folk they knew and trusted and shared common values with. Difficult stuff.
The Royal Navy didn?t follow that pattern of recruitment, and you were just posted to whatever ship or shore base had a vacancy. So that had less local impact when a ship went down.
I have had a look at PRONI?s database. They don?t have any files that start solely with the prefix M. I think that must be a file number relating to the National Library or National Archives in Dublin. (Though some documents are common to both Dublin & Belfast, a lot are only held by one repository).
PRONI has 92 docs on the Crimean War but I can?t see any relating to Aghada. (There are 4 other docs relating to Aghada but none involve the Crimean War). So without further information, I think I am going to struggle to locate this document in Belfast.
I will have a look next week when I am there because the in-house computer system has more than the on-line version but it doesn?t look promising.
Elwyn
