Irish soldiers in WW1

P. Breathnach · 20-11-2011 3:54pm

It's all coming together very neatly.

Thanks from Herself and from me.

johnny_doyle · 20-11-2011 6:11pm

it's a great pity there doesn't appear to be a service record or pension record left to confirm his service.

P. Breathnach · 20-11-2011 6:22pm

johnny_doyle wrote: »

it's a great pity there doesn't appear to be a service record or pension record left to confirm his service.

Apart from the fact that we can't find anything online, is there any reason for believing that no record survives?

johnny_doyle · 20-11-2011 8:28pm

if he was in a Guards regiment, then it would (should) be available offline.

As far as I'm aware, the remaining WW1 service and pension records should be available online though some soldiers who served on after 1920 may still have records with the Ministry of Defence.

johnny_doyle · 24-11-2011 2:22am

enfield wrote: »

Just a stab in the dark here...would the name also be spelled Nealon or Neilon?
Cheers.
Tom.

having just had a major breakthrough with Hugh Niland and his 1862/64 US Navy records, I discovered my Joseph Niland's birth date and another spelling variation

Name: Joseph Nighland
Gender: Male
Birth Date: 23 Sep 1872
Birth Place: Dublin City, Dublin, Ireland
Father's Name: Hugh Nighland
Mother's Name: Ellen Hawkins

and can now work out his exact age when he was killed in March 1917.

enfield · 03-11-2014 11:04pm

179th Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers, (SDGW). Dublin Joseph Niland Sapper Royal Engineers 179th Field Company. 95796 28/03/1917 Aged;43 Born-Dublin Enlisted-Dublin Killed in action Husband of Jane Niland, of 32, Summer Hill, Dublin. II. L. 21. Faubourg D’Amiens Cemetery, Arras, France.
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Dublin/Mountjoy/Summerhill/29509/

jos28 · 05-11-2014 11:28pm

johnny_doyle wrote: »

I can see 1 medal card for a Bartholomew Glover, Sapper, Royal Engineers, number 25418. Entered France 12/6/1915. Awarded 1915 Star, Victory Medal and British War Medal. Discharged but no date given. Not seeing anything else.

I think you already have this info based on a Rootschat thread and a posting in the WW1 forum.

There are a load of cards for William Glover. Nothing to show which one might have been from Tralee. There are 16 with Royal Engineer medal cards; if they'd joined together then their numbers would be close but the nearest is 28335 who was from Staffordshire and died of wounds. Any medals in the family belonging to William?

The photo of William on the WW1 forum shows him wearing a Silver War Badge rather than a Royal Engineers badge

https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/49848/97657.jpg

This photo taken by Thomas Forrest and Sons who operated out of a studio (Cambrian Studios) at 14 Market St, Pontypridd, Glamorgan, from 1868 through to 1926.

Long overdue update on my search for William - I found his grave near Dagenham and got his death cert from that (DOD 1931). I always believed he lived alone but was delighted to find that he married a girl from Tralee in 1916. According to the register at St John's, Tralee, William was living in Pembroke, Wales at the time of marriage. Well done Detective Doyle !
That ties in nicely with the photo They stayed in England after the war and had 3 children. 2 of those children are still alive and I have been in touch with his daughter

:D. She confirmed everything I had discovered, she is living in Surrey and we will be meeting up in Tralee in the new year. Delighted the way it all turned out and I couldn't have done it without all the help I got here.

Jesus. · 06-11-2014 12:03am

How many Irishmen really died in that conflict? Was it 30k or 50k?

Peregrinus · 06-11-2014 7:21am

Jesus. wrote: »

How many Irishmen really died in that conflict? Was it 30k or 50k?

Short answer: It depends on what you mean by "Irishmen". And, even if you define that, it may still be difficult to know the answer.

Slightly longer answer: There was of course no separate category of "Irish citizen" in existence at the time. The British forces did, I think, record the place of birth of people enlisting, but lots of people who were born in Britain of Irish parents would have considered themselves, and called themselves, Irish. Conversely people born in Ireland of English, Scottish or Welsh parents might not have identified as Irish. The British army also had records of the places in which people had enlisted. And of course it also had records of people who served in regiments which traditionally recruited in Ireland, such as the Royal Irish Rifles or the Irish Guards.

So, does "Irishman" mean people who were born in Ireland? People who identify as Irish on cultural/ethnic grounds? People who enlisted in Ireland? People who served in Irish regiments?

And what about Irish people, however defined, who served in the US forces in 1917/18?

In other words, depending on how you count, you can come up with strikingly different figures, and on some counts it may be difficult to come up with any precise figure at all.

Jesus. · 06-11-2014 12:48pm

Come on Pereginus, cut the bullsh*t. We all know everything "depends" on all sorts of things.

Just give me a figure for people who were born in Ireland and who died fighting in WW1

pedroeibar1 · 06-11-2014 1:41pm

Jesus. wrote: »

How many Irishmen really died in that conflict? Was it 30k or 50k?

Why not look at a few sources? Where did you get those figures? It is generally accepted that 50k died. As P said, where does one draw the line? My great uncle, born in Cork, had emigrated to the US in the early 1900's and went to Canada to join up. So was he Irish, American or Canadian?

Jesus. · 06-11-2014 1:56pm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Why not look at a few sources?

That's why I'm asking you lads! The 50k number is given at Islandbridge, in other words the official Irish government figure. But I've seen newspapers and the like quote 30k.

If its a question you can't answer then no problem. There's no harm in asking though. That's what a Forum is for

jonniebgood1 · 06-11-2014 5:30pm

Jesus. wrote: »

That's why I'm asking you lads! The 50k number is given at Islandbridge, in other words the official Irish government figure. But I've seen newspapers and the like quote 30k.

If its a question you can't answer then no problem. There's no harm in asking though. That's what a Forum is for

Can you give a source for the 30K figure ???

Jesus. · 06-11-2014 6:13pm

Like I said, its a figure I've seen bandied about in newspapers and the like Jonnie

pedroeibar1 · 06-11-2014 11:29pm

I’m researching (trying to!) a young Irishman who quit TCD in 1916/17and was commissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery Special Reserve in Spring 1918. Would he have gone to a cadet school for training? For how long? Were junior Special Reserve officers in 1918 automatically sent to the combat zone or were they ‘reservists’? I’m (just about) familiar with the RGA / Forts, so could he have been left in Ireland? Any pointers/info gratefully received……
Tnx.

Peregrinus · 07-11-2014 2:36am

In peacetime, the Special Reserve was for part-time soldiering, a bit like the Territorial Army today. You did a stint of full-time training, and then returned to civilian life, but continued serving with a fairly limited part-time commitment. But, in wartime, the Special Reserve could be mobilised and its members would all have become full-time soldiers again. (And this would happen before any conscription, so Special Reservists would be the first to be called up.)

The Special Reserve was mobilised in August 1914, so in joining your man would have been becoming a full-time soldier.

While Special Reserve units could be sent abroad, in practice they were not; they were retained for home defence work. But they were also treated as a reserve for replenishing regular units, so men serving in the Special Reserve could be, and were, reassigned to other units and then sent to France or elsewhere. And in fact very early on in the Great War most special reserve units became training units, pure and simple. A man recruited into the Special Reserve spent a short time being trained, and was then reassigned to the regular army and sent off. Officers in the special reserve could also be reassigned, but this happened less often - there was a core of permanent officers in what was essentially a training role, so they stayed at home permamently while intake after intake of enlisted men passed through their hands and went off to the front. We can imagine what Siegfried Sassoon would have said about it.

I don't know, however, whether SR units also served as training units for junior officers. Possibly your man joined the SR and became an instructor or training officer; possibly he learned how to fire a revolver, ride a horse and read the King's Regulations before being reassigned to a regular unit.

Peregrinus · 07-11-2014 4:54am

Jesus. wrote: »

Come on Pereginus, cut the bullsh*t. We all know everything "depends" on all sorts of things.

Just give me a figure for people who were born in Ireland and who died fighting in WW1

I can't. Nobody has ever compiled such a figure reliably, and it would be difficult to do so because many of the death records do not give the deceased's place of birth.

Jesus. · 07-11-2014 3:35pm

Okay Peregrinus. Appreciate the detailed response.

I guess its just something we'll never know

pedroeibar1 · 09-11-2014 9:51pm

Peregrinus wrote: »

In peacetime, the Special Reserve was for part-time soldiering, a bit like the Territorial Army today. You did a stint of full-time training, and then returned to civilian life, but continued serving with a fairly limited part-time commitment. But, in wartime, the Special Reserve could be mobilised and its members would all have become full-time soldiers again. (And this would happen before any conscription, so Special Reservists would be the first to be called up.)

The Special Reserve was mobilised in August 1914, so in joining your man would have been becoming a full-time soldier.

While Special Reserve units could be sent abroad, in practice they were not; they were retained for home defence work. But they were also treated as a reserve for replenishing regular units, so men serving in the Special Reserve could be, and were, reassigned to other units and then sent to France or elsewhere. And in fact very early on in the Great War most special reserve units became training units, pure and simple. A man recruited into the Special Reserve spent a short time being trained, and was then reassigned to the regular army and sent off. Officers in the special reserve could also be reassigned, but this happened less often - there was a core of permanent officers in what was essentially a training role, so they stayed at home permamently while intake after intake of enlisted men passed through their hands and went off to the front. We can imagine what Siegfried Sassoon would have said about it.

I don't know, however, whether SR units also served as training units for junior officers. Possibly your man joined the SR and became an instructor or training officer; possibly he learned how to fire a revolver, ride a horse and read the King's Regulations before being reassigned to a regular unit.

Thanks Peregrinus, I’d got much of that but had not realised that the call-up of the SR was a “general" one. What I have difficulty with was why join the SR and not directly into a line Corps/Regiment. Also trying to figure out the training – he left school in England 1916, entered TCD that year but then was commissioned in Spring 1918. As TCD had no TA / ROTC or equivalent he must have volunteered elsewhere? For 1917 I guess he was at a cadet school– would it have been Woolwich, given he was in the RGA? Was there an artillery school in Ireland? I cannot imagine him as a training officer, although he would have been good on a horse and familiar with guns. Kew probably holds the answer........

Peregrinus · 10-11-2014 1:53am

My wild guess would be that he didn't choose to join the SR; he joined up and was assigned to the SR for training with the expectation that, when trained, he would be commissioned and then reassigned to a regular unit.

The RGA specialised in heavy artillery - very heavy artillery - and a lot of its training had to be delivered at the places where the very heavy artillery was located - e.g. coastal forts. Having said that, as an officer cadet, your man would have had a good deal of stuff to learn that had nothing to do with firing big guns. The RGA had officer cadet schools; they were all in Britain (Trowbridge, Bournemouth and Weymouth). But by 1917 I'm not sure if regiment-based training was still being observed in practice; I suspect officer cadets from any regiment were often sent to whatever officer cadet school had the next convenient intake. So he could have spent a stint in any OTC facility, followed by a stint at a heavy artillery training unit, which could be anywhere.

pedroeibar1 · 10-11-2014 11:05am

Thanks Peregrinus, very helpful.

pedroeibar1 · 10-11-2014 11:46pm

I’ve no connection with this project – the author has posted several interesting comments here in the past so his upcoming publication deserves a mention. Ireland and the First World War: A Photographic History

kabakuyu · 13-11-2014 9:17pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Can you give a source for the 30K figure ???

The figures below came from the Genealogy company Eneclann using the Irish War Memorial Records as their source.

Of the total of 49,200 in the records,30,987 are recorded as having been born in Ireland.

No place of birth was recorded for 7,405.

11,255 were recorded as born outside Ireland,These include 9,162 in England,1,357 in Scotland, 314 in Wales, and 165 in the Channel Islands.30 other countries are represented with much lesser numbers.

The research was conducted by genealogy company Eneclann using the IWMR as the source.

Unfortunately the IWMR do not include every Irish born man(some have slipped through the net) or the Irish born who died in the service of the commonwealth nations or in US forces.
Some years ago historians and some journos(Kevin Myers) suggested a figure of 35,000 may be more accurate, but in my humble opinion I think this figure may also be low, 40,000 may be nearer the true figure.

Jesus. · 13-11-2014 9:23pm

Interesting, Kabakuyu.

Why were the 11,255 recorded as Irish specifically? Is it because they gave their nationality as Irish on their registration/census forms?

kabakuyu · 13-11-2014 9:44pm

Jesus. wrote: »

Interesting, Kabakuyu.

Why were the 11,255 recorded as Irish specifically? Is it because they gave their nationality as Irish on their registration/census forms?

From what I can gather, they were included because they were in Irish regiments when they died.Some no doubt,would have identified as Irish but many others would not have.Non Irish were drafted into Irish regiments when recruitment in Ireland waned.

Irish regiments always had a sprinkling of non Irish within their ranks even before the war.IIRC according to the 1911 census the Connaught Rangers(in India at the time) was 89% Irish born.

The 7,000 without a registered country of birth,could contain a large number of men who were Irish born, but it would take a large effort to try to determine the place of birth of these men.

Parsnips84 · 20-08-2015 6:14pm

Hi my great grandad fought in ww1 richard parsons he was blinded in the war and given army housing in churchtown dublin I know this housing was part of a fund set up to take care of the exsoldiers but I have yet to find a service number or regiment id be greatful for any help he lived in number 3 churchtown little if that makes any difference thanks

Irish soldiers in WW1

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