Ireland’s British Army doctors and the treatment of Irish nationalists, 1916–23

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of Ireland’s British Army doctors in treating the wounded in the three primary conflicts in Ireland from 1916 to 1923: the Easter Rising (April 1916), Irish War of Independence (January 1919 to July 1921) and Irish Civil War (June 1922 to May 1923). As part of their wartime duties within the British Army, a contingent of Irish doctors tended to those wounded in the Easter Rising, including separatist Irish nationalists. Ex-Royal Army Medical Corps officers from Ireland also became professionally immersed in the War of Independence and the Civil War. As these wars transpired, many of the Irish doctors enlisted in the RAMC on temporary commissions for the duration of the First World War demobilised and returned to Ireland. Subsequently, some of these men provided health care to wounded IRA members and, later, to the Irish National Army.