RCB Library Notes
100 Years of Delgany Day
By tradition, the offices of the RCB in Church House Dublin and the RCB Library will remain closed on Thursday 14th May for the annual golf outing.
This year is particularly poignant, as we celebrate 100 years of Delgany Day. Originally envisaged as a team building event for RCB staff by George Booker Butler, (Chief Officer and Secretary of the RCB from 1935 to 1949), Delgany Day must now be the oldest outing in Irish golf history!
In 2012, the RCB Library published it’s May Archive of the Month which explored the origin’s of Delgany Day, as well as the poignant story of George Butler’s youngest son Leslie, who was killed in action in Killafrana (now Kalafrana), Malta. Subsequently, in honour of Leslie Butler, each year the winning golfer is awarded the Leslie Butler Trophy. The original article can be read here!
Since the original article in 2012, we also have an update on Leslie Butler’s final resting place.
The former RCB Press Officer Peter Cheney visited the war grave of Leslie Butler, who now rests in Cappucini Naval Cemetery, on a hill above Malta’s Grand Harbour, alongside Leading Aircraftman Arthur James Salter and Flt Sgt Charles Henry McKenzie Daniell. Commonwealth war graves in Malta, such as this, are generally marked with flat headstones due to the rocky ground.
Leslie Butler was serving as a wireless operator and air gunner from RAF Kalafrana, a seaplane base on the south coast of the island, and was 25 years old.Arthur Salter, from the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, served in 2934 Squadron with the RAF Regiment, protecting airfields from attack, and died on 31st October 1943 at the age of 31. His headstone is inscribed: ‘He fought the good fight he has finished his course. May he rest in peace.’Twenty–one year–old Charles Daniell had made the longest journey to the George Cross island, from Southport, Queensland, to serve with the Royal Australian Air Force. He died on 14th December 1943, in an accident at RAF Luqa.These three young men were among over 3,800 British service personnel who lost their lives on active service in Malta or on military operations carried out from the island in the Second World War.