Stephen Duffy Lyons was a British Army lieutenant who served in the Royal Irish Regiment, 6th Battalion, Fusiliers during World War I. He also served as an Irish Parliamentary Party MP during the 1910s.
Biography[]
Stephen Duffy Lyons was born in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland to an upper-class Anglo-Irish family, and, by 1914, he was engaged to the Irish theatre actress Elizabeth Butler. Upon the outbreak of World War I, Duffy Lyons called on other Irishmen to show their loyalty to the King in the hopes that he would eventually grant the Irish home rule; meanwhile, his wife was secretly attending Irish Republican Brotherhood meetings and planning to take part in a rebellion against continued British rule. Lyons went on to enlist in the Royal Irish Regiment of the British Army and served on the front lines, but he returned for two weeks' leave in April 1916 after being wounded and sent to convalesce Malta. On 18 April 1916, he gained the permission of Elizabeth's father to marry on the next Monday, but the wedding was cancelled due to the Easter Rising breaking out that same day. While Lyons was sent to take City Hall with a squad of soldiers, Butler - unbeknownst to him - served as a nurse on the rebel side. Duffy Lyons felt betrayed when he noticed Butler among the prisoners, and after she told him that she would not go back to him, Duffy Lyons nearly committed suicide in his bedroom with a pistol. Upon reporting for duty, he was sent to a court-martial trial by General John Maxwell for his suicide attempt, but Maxwell decided that, as an Irish MP and British Army officer of high standing, Duffy Lyons would neither be executed nor discharged, and he was instead sent to the front in France.
It is unknown if Stephen survived the war or not.
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