Abstract
AbstractAt the time when Irish veterans of the Great War were being demobilized, Ireland was in a period of profound social, political, and cultural change that was irreversibly transforming the island. Armistice and the veterans’ relief at having survived the conflict and being back with family could not eclipse the overwhelming political climate they met on their homecoming. This article draws on the 1929 Report by the Committee on Claims of British Ex-servicemen, commissioned by the Irish Free State to investigate whether Irish veterans were discriminated against by the Southern Irish and British authorities. The research also makes use of a range of underexploited primary sources: the Liaison and Evacuation Papers in the Military Archives in Dublin, the collection of minutes of the Irish Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Land Trust in the National Archives in London, and original material from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and the National Archives of Ireland relating to economic programs for veterans. A comparative approach of to the respective demobilizations of veterans in Northern and Southern Ireland in the 1920s reveals that disparities in formal recognition of their sacrifice and in special provision for housing and employment significantly and painfully complicated their repatriation.
Highlights
When the time came to rejoice over the war’s ending, was there anything more tragic than the position of men who had gone out by the thousands for the sake of Ireland to confront the greatest military power ever known in history, who had fought the war and won the war, and who looked at each other with doubtful eyes?
Among the 115,550 republicans allegedly belonging to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the War of Independence[3] were hundreds of veterans, possibly as many as a thousand, who joined the IRA between 1919 and 1921.5 That number did not reflect most of the trajectories of more than 150,000 Irish veterans,[6] as clearly “the great majority of ex-servicemen did not take part in the struggle for the independence of their
Paul Taylor has concluded that the British government fulfilled its obligations toward the Irish war veterans; he maintains that their “war service brought no privilege from the [Irish Free] State or community but neither did it result in discrimination.”[13]. While Taylor sheds valuable light on veterans’ homecoming, a comparative approach to their repatriation in Northern and Southern Ireland would help determine whether Northern Ireland, as still a full member of the United Kingdom, did more to reintegrate veterans socioeconomically than the autonomous Irish Free State
Summary
When the time came to rejoice over the war’s ending, was there anything more tragic than the position of men who had gone out by the thousands for the sake of Ireland to confront the greatest military power ever known in history, who had fought the war and won the war, and who looked at each other with doubtful eyes?. I explore the homecoming of veterans of the First World War in both Northern and Southern Ireland.[14] I go beyond comparing their respective reintegration and situate the question of political responses to their homecoming in relation to state building and national identities.
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