The Irish Press and Imperial Soldiering, 1882–85

Abstract

In recent years scholars have endeavored to broaden and complicate our understanding of Irish engagements with the British and other empires. Jill Bender has rightly noted that the questions historians are asking about Ireland and empire have changed. ‘Rather than look to Ireland’s participation in the Empire for insight into Ireland’s colonial status’, she explains, ‘historians have begun to unpack these contributions for insight into the imperial experience’.1 In some cases this has meant challenging long-held conceptions about Nationalist imperial resistance, while others have productively explored how numerous Irishmen and Irish families took advantage of the many financial and professional opportunities available to them within the British Empire.2 By far the most numerous and visible Irish people serving in the Empire were soldiers, hence the truism that the English paid the Scots to run their Empire for them and the Irish to fight for it. While scholars have noted the large numbers of Irishmen in the Victorian army, outside of military historians few have devoted much attention to Irish soldiers.3 This chapter will examine the major themes in Irish newspaper commentary on imperial soldiering during the Egyptian and Sudanese crises of 1882–85, arguably the highest-profile imperial military conflicts between the Indian Rebellion/Mutiny and the Boer War, in order to explore how contemporaries understood the connections between the Empire, Irish service within it, and the national question.