Académique Documents
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XX1 - V1
8 NEWS
Irish Examiner
Thursday 29.06.2006
Q: What happened to
the soldiers after the
war?
A: They returned home to
Ireland to a country which
was to be partitioned, and
then divided again by a
civil war. Some were
viewed with suspicion and
hostility for their wartime
role with the British Army
and at the
height of the
Black and Tan
Terror it was,
perhaps, prudent not to advertise a war
record too
prominently. It
is estimated
that as many as
200 former servicemen were assassinated
as suspected informers by
the IRA between 1919 and
1922. William McPherson
of Mallow was shot
through the chest and a
message pinned to him:
Spies and informers in
Mallow beware. Even 65
years after The Somme Sir
Norman Stronge was killed
with his son, and his
home, Tynan Abbey, destroyed by fire two days
before his 87th birthday.
So men such as these survived the war, but not the
peace. Other ex-soldiers,
joined the forces of the
Free State. Others such as
Tom Barry and Emmet Dalton took their wartime experience into the IRA.
Q
&A
The Somme memorial in Les Vans, in the Ardche region of France. Below left: une paysanne kisses the empty
greatcoat of her lost husband on the WWI monument in Sailly-Sallisel, France.
Q: What happened to
the regiments?
A: They marched out of
history with the creation of
the Free State and handed
over their colours at Wind-
Q: How can I
find out
about my relatives who
participated
in the Great
War
A: The Commonwealth
War Graves
Commission
(www.cwc.org) is a good
starting point if you have
details of where he fell. If
his grave was unmarked
his name may be recorded
on the Thiepval Memorial
on the Somme, or the
Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium. The staff at the
Somme Heritage Centre
(www.Irishsoldier.org) are
extremely helpful. There
are also associations you
can try: Royal Munster
Fusiliers Association, 86
High Meadows, Gouldavoher, Limerick; Royal Dublin
Fusiliers Association, 11
Ayrfield Court, Ayrfield,
Dublin 13; Connaught
Rangers Association, Forest Row, Boyle, Co.
Roscommon. Western
Front Association, Republic
of Ireland branch, 49 Killarney Heights, Bray, Co.
Wicklow.
Q: Were any Irishmen
executed for desertion?
A: During the Great War
346 officers and men were
executed for a range of offences including murder
and it is calculated that 26
were of Irish blood. At
least seven were shot
during the Somme offensive. This is a controversial
area and in the early part
of the 20th century little
was understood about
shell shock or battle fatigue. Surprising, perhaps,
is that the number is so
low given that the British
Army had nearly five million men under arms by
the end of 1918.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Guillemont (Michael Stedman, Leo Cooper London); Bandon District Soldiers Who Died In The
Great War (Bandon War Memorial Committee);
With A Machine Gun to Cambrai (George Coppard, MacMillan Publishers); Battlefields of
Northern France (Michael Glover, Michael
Irish Academic Press); To Win A War (John Terraine, Macmillan Publishers); First World War
(Martin Gilbert, Harper Collins); A Long Long
Way (Sebastian Barry, Faber and Faber); Ireland
and the Great War (edited by Adrian Gregory and
Senia Paeta, Manchester University Press);