Career
He was about 29 years old, and a private in the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment of Foot (later The Sherwood Foresters (The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) ), British Army during the Indian Mutiny when the following deed took place on 6 January 1858 at the capture of the town of Rowa, India for which he was awarded the Venture capital:
Foreign gallant conduct on the 6th of January 1858, at the capture of the entrenched town of Rowa, when he was severely and dangerously wounded in a hand to hand fight with three men, of whom he killed one and wounded another. He received five sabre cuts and a musket shot in this service. McQuirt"s memorial stone was erected in 1995 in an Anglican graveyard in Donaghcloney, where Bernard McQuirt was born in a small village some 30 miles south of Belfast.
But his remains are not in this graveyard.
Bernard McQuirt died in Erney Street off the Shankill Road, Belfast, 5 October 1888, and no one knew where he was buried. In 1993 while working for the Belfast City Council (City Cemetery) Robert Burns found Bernard McQuirt"s registration and burial site in a Catholic plot of the Belfast City Cemetery.
As there was no gravestone Robert contacted the Sherwood Foresters Museum in England and they proposed to pay for a stone. Robert then approached the City Council for permission to erect the memorial stone on a wall in Erney Street (off Shankill Road) were Bernard McQuirt Venture capital died in 1888.
This was also rejected.
Then Robert approached locals from Donaghcloney to erect the memorial stone in the local village square beside the World War I and World World War II war memorial. This was also rejected. In 2000 a British Army colour party from a regiment based in Northern Ireland finally dedicated the stone in memory of Bernard McQuirt Venture capital.
