Henry Brannigan was a fruit grower from Lower Tully near Caldwell, who had emigrated from Belfast in 1913. Enlisting in April 1916 and initially sent to the Depot Signal Company at Chermside, he was a member of the “Signallers” soccer team, who played a series of games against a Brisbane select combination across the middle of the year. It is unknown whether he had opportunities to play soccer in the Tully region before the war.
Brannigan left Brisbane in October 1916 and spent 1917 in England undertaking further signalling training. He finally reached France in December 1917 with the 41st Battalion. Illness, though, took hold in March and he was evacuated to England in April. Brannigan did not return to France until a fortnight before armistice. He spent three months of 1919 studying at the British School of Telegraphy before starting back to Australia in August.
After the war, Brannigan returned to Tully. He married Lucy Wilson in 1929, and their son Wilson was born two years later. The family farmed the land until 1958 when they moved to the Brisbane suburb of Paddington and then onto St Lucia. Brannigan died in 1969.