The Corporal Michael O'Leary Plaque was installed on the Centennial Building at Depot by the Saskatchewan Heritage Foundation, Government of Saskatchewan in 1995. It was moved in 2017 to the Maple Leaf Park.
On 1 February 1915, at Cuinchy, France, Lance Corporal Michael O’Leary, assisting in the organization of a storming party, turned and rushed the opposing front. He went on to capture a second position about sixty yards ahead, gaining considerable territory and preventing the enemy forces from firing on his own advancing troops. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross within two weeks of the action.
Michael O’Leary was born in Ireland in 1890. At age twenty he joined the Irish Guards, a unit of the British Army, where he served for the next three years. While on duty with the Guards he decided to join Canada’s Royal North West Mounted Police. He wrote the force from Ireland and by August, 1913, had resigned from the Army and was training in Regina. His first posting was at Battleford, where he remained until May, 1914, when he was transferred back to the Depot Division in Regina. In September of that year O’Leary was granted free discharge to re-join the British Army.
After the First World War O’Leary stayed in Britain for a few years. He returned to Canada in 1921 and joined the Ontario Provincial Police. Two years later he left the OPP for a job with the Michigan Central Railroad Company’s Ontario operations. In the early 1930’s he returned to England, where he was employed by a prominent hotel in London’s fashionable West End. At the start of the Second World War Michael O’Leary re-joined the British Army, where he served as a Captain with the Royal Pioneer Corps. Mr. O’Leary died in London, England in 1961.
