Under EPO 362, 4,634 Irish soldiers who had been absent from their posts for more than 180 days were summarily dismissed from the Irish Defence Forces for desertion. Servicemen who on 8 August were absent for less than 180 days and were not captured were dismissed automatically as soon as they passed the 180-day threshold. … Read more
Apart from increasing military wages, there was little that the Irish government could do to address the main problem facing Irish servicemen: boredom. After the initial surge of recruitment in mid-1940, when Defence Force numbers peaked at around 40,000 men, life in the Irish forces quickly became routine. As the threat of invasion receded after … Read more
Sir,—The article ‘When Dublin responded to blitzed Belfast’s Mayday’ (HI 19.3, May/June 2011) coincided with a commemoration of the event held in Drogheda on 15 May. The mayor of Drogheda, Alderman Paul Bell, hosted his counterparts from Dublin and Belfast at a tree-planting ceremony and the unveiling of a plaque at the fire station in … Read more
Sir, —Paul McNamara’s excellent article on Seán Lester (HI 17.3, May/June 2009) shows us how weakness in the face of totalitarianism can lead to greater disaster. The article reminded me of Hubert Butler’s essay on resistance leader and Nobel laureate Carl von Ossietzky. Butler noted the brave and principled campaign that Ossietzky led against Hitler, … Read more
The response of the Dublin government to the urgent message from the war room at Stormont was remarkable, given the historically tense relations between the two jurisdictions. While hundreds of firemen from both Glasgow and Liverpool were dispatched, they could not reach Belfast until much later on the day of 16 April, following the previous … Read more