Ireland and the First World War
Sir,—George Boyce’s article ‘Ireland and the First World War’ (HI autumn 1994) contained a number of inaccuracies regarding Irish involvement in this conflict:
l) He blithely states that ‘The 10th and 16th Irish Divisions were almost exclusively Catholic’ (p.49). Perhaps the more important question, which he unfortunately ignores, is—were these divisions exclusively Irish? Some recent research has found that sixty per cent of the men of the 6th battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers, part of the 10th (Irish) Division, were actually recruited in Bristol (P. Simkins, Kitchener’s Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914 -16 [Manchester 1988], p.70), while the 6th battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, and part of the 16th (Irish) Division, contained 250 men from the Guernsey Militia (T. Denman, Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers: The 16th (Irish ) Division in the Great War, 1914 -18 [Dublin 1992]).
2) He quotes Bryan Cooper’s views on how Protestants and Catholics of the 10th Division came to share a common cause. What he neglects to mention is that Cooper, like Willie Redmond, was making a political point in his writing. Major Bryan Cooper was also a prominent Nationalist and was to become a Cumman na nGaedhael TD for County Dublin.
3) He states that ‘It was also usual for professionals to blame inexperienced (i.e. non-English) soldiers like the Irish or the Australians when things went wrong at the front’ (p.52). This is, quite simply, incorrect. British Generals of the Great War had little time for ‘amateurs’ regardless of their nationality. For example, General Gough heavily criticised the 49th Division for their failure to capture the Schwaben Redoubt in the Somme sector on 3 September 1916, despite the fact that this was an English Territorial Division, recruited from the West Riding of Yorkshire.
4) He resurrects the old myth that the 36th (Ulster) Division was totally Protestant and Unionist. Frank McGuinness’s play Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme may be a good piece of literature, but it gives a very inaccurate view of the composition of this Division. Like all Irish ‘new army’ divisions the 36th contained many non-Irish recruits and it would appear that almost twenty per cent of men in the 14th battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles (‘Young Citizen Volunteers of Belfast’) were Catholics. Most revealingly, while all the characters in McGuinness’s play don orange sashes before going over the top, it should have been noted that none of the veterans interviewed by
Philip Orr seem to have done this.
Due to these inaccuracies I found the article a great disappointment. It offered no new material and, indeed, perpetuated many of the myths concerning Ireland’s role in the First World War. This is not the standard of work we have come to expect from the author of such excellent works as Englishmen and Irish Troubles and Nineteenth Century Ireland.—Yours etc.,
TIMOTHY BOWMAN
17 Lynne Crescent,
Bangor,
Co. Down
BTl9 lPA
N. Ireland
I am very grateful to Mr Bowman for reading my article so closely and I am happy to respond to his criticisms.
1) On the question of the composition of the ‘new armies’, which we are talking about, I remain convinced that they were, in their original character, primarily of one or other political/religious affiliation. In February 1915 H.I. Tennant wrote to Parsons that certain men, who had enlisted in the Connaught Rangers and the Leinster Regiment were about to be sent to the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. He explained his reluctance to raise political considerations, but added, ‘In Ireland it seems impossible to proceed without impinging upon sensibilities which are closely allied to such considerations. And I venture to suggest to you that to send men who enlisted to serve among their friends and sympathisers to regiments where the predominating sentiment is dramatically opposed to their prepossessions and ideas is to run a considerable risk’. Of course, Irish regiments recruited elsewhere, or, rather, recruits, were sent to them from elsewhere. And as casualties mounted, especially after 1916, the ‘dilution’ was more marked. But this no more robbed the Irish divisions of their essential character than the dilution of the Ulster Division robbed it of its essential character as the expression of what was best in Ulster Unionist tradition.
2) Bryan Cooper was not a Nationalist, but a southern Unionist. In any case, my point was that, however matters seemed to be improving with regard to Unionist/Nationalist relations in the ranks, this was only superficial, and could not bridge the enormous gap between the two traditions. But some hoped that it would. Lt. Col. Alec Hamilton Gordon of IX Corps wrote to Parsons in December 1916 that ‘Your old division and its political antagonists are in my command and are holding the line side by side, the best friends in the world out here. I have no doubt the friendship will last and be of great value later or in more troublous times that may be in store’. He was of course wrong.
3) This is a very good point, but there is a difference, I think, in blaming ‘amateurs’ and singling out national character as a partial explanation for their failings. The Australians did come in for criticism from the highest to the lowest. Field Marshal Haig contrasted them unfavourably with the Canadians, writing in 1918 that the former ‘were not nearly so efficient’ and blaming this on their (English) commander Birdwood who ‘instead of facing the problem has gone in for the easier way of saying that everything is perfect and making himself as popular as possible’. Haig thought that the problem was that the Australians were unwilling to shoot troublesome types. At Gallipoli, a royal marine wrote of the ANZACs as living in ‘chaos…and nobody knew where anyone was…one met Australians all over the place wandering round, drinking tea, and having pot shots at anything they saw’—and this, not from a hardened professional, but from an equally inexperienced marine. The ANZACs had suffered enormous losses and were in a state of extreme battle fatigue. However, my point was that nationalist claims that the British military mistrusted or belittled the Irish Catholic soldier have been enormously exaggerated. But I think that to say that there was NO sign of occasional prejudice is to push the argument too far in the other direction. For example, the extreme gallantry of the Munster Fusiliers at Gallipoli was ignored in Ian Hamilton’s official report, which, as a natural and thoughtful gentleman, he later amended.
4) The 36th Ulster Division was mainly Protestant and Unionist, as its members proudly testified, and as contemporaries noted (see point 1, above). Of course other people served in the division. I once interviewed a Captain Regan of the RIC, later of the RUC, who was transferred into the 36th. He was a Roman Catholic, and a faithful servant of the Crown, and told me an amusing joke about overhearing two of his new command discussing the progress of the war, one saying, ‘We are losing this f…ing war, you know’. ‘Why?’, asked the other. ‘Well, it’s a sure thing we will, when they are sending us Roman Catholics’. He added ‘I know this was a joke’, and of course it was, but one based on the special codes that only Irishmen and Ulstermen know—if my critic does not object to my use of those terms.
Again, however, my critic misses the point, which is that literature is not history, but may serve to illuminate aspects of history, and I believe that the Sons of Ulster play does that. It respects and epitomises the great sacrifices of the Protestant Ulstermen in 1916, and shows them as real people, not as bigoted
caricatures beloved of certain schools of nationalism. As to the wearing of sashes, this is I think a myth, though one which A.T.Q. Stewart states as fact in the last pages of his Ulster Crisis. However, that is not the point. The point is that at last audiences, including a Dublin audience, were given some impression of the passion and belief of the Ulstermen of 1916, and as I say, McGuinness does reveal their faith and politics as real and deeply rooted, not as ‘racialism’ (the most fashionable recent nationalist interpretation), nor as delusions, but as a political tradition that must command serious attention and, indeed, respect. I believe that McGuinness, through fiction, accords the Ulster Protestant Unionist tradition that respect and much needed understanding.
I hope these answers will prove interesting to Mr Bowman. As to his kind remarks about my other work—many thanks, and thanks also for his interesting letter, which has kept me on my toes, as it were—which is where historians should be kept, through trenchant criticism.—Yours etc.,
GEORGE BOYCE
Department of Politics,
University of Wales,
Swansea
Irish Dance
Sir,—The article by Helen Brennan, Reinventing Tradition: the boundaries of Irish dance (HI summer 1994), was a most instructive and impelling composition. Ms Brennan isolated a part of Irish culture with a skillful pen and illuminated a subject matter that is informative and incites interest. As a foreigner who exists in a populace where most have a real or desired association with Irish heritage, Ms Brennan provides the reader with an instructive association to a history rich in creative expression. Her subject matter and engaging style serves well a history lesson that brings us all a bit closer.—Yours etc.,
SKIP T. HECK
4500 S. Lakeshore Drive,
Suite 420,
Tempe,
AZ 85282,
USA.