Did Ulster soldiers really wear sashes ?

Delancey

Any truth to the stories of the ' Loyal Sons of Ulster ' wearing their orange sashes when going ' over the top ' on the Somme , or is it just a myth ?

arnhem44

Here's one such reference from a site that says they did,many sites qoutes the same but dont give much detail.

http://www.webmatters.net/france/ww1_ulster.htm

MrMicra

delancey42 wrote: »

Any truth to the stories of the ' Loyal Sons of Ulster ' wearing their orange sashes when going ' over the top ' on the Somme , or is it just a myth ?

Short answer yes.
Of the 9 members of the Ulster Division who won the victoria cross only 1 was a member of the orange order. That tallies fairly closely with the membership rate for male protestants in this period.

Those men who were members of the loyal institutions were allowed to organise lodges and participate in orange activity. Lundy day had been celebrated with a bonfire in 1915.

The Battle of the Somme began on the 1st of July 1916. The Julian calendar date for the Battle of the Boyne is July the 1st.

I can see obvious reasons to believe that someone would have worn his sash when going over the top and no reason to believe that nobody wore a sash going over the top.

The only reason that they wouldn't have worn their sashes would be that they'd been told not to and that isn't likely.

Fratton Fred

MrMicra wrote: »

Short answer yes.
Of the 9 members of the Ulster Division who won the victoria cross only 1 was a member of the orange order. That tallies fairly closely with the membership rate for male protestants in this period.

My great grandfather was in the Inniskilling fusiliers. he had never been to ireland in his life and certainly was not an Orangeman (He was married to a Catholic so couldn't have been).

The royal inniskilling Fusiliers were based in Portsmouth for many years (Which is how my GGF joined them) so that may help explain why there were so few Orangemen in their ranks as well.

R.Dub.Fusilier

Fratton Fred wrote: »

My great grandfather was in the Inniskilling fusiliers. he had never been to ireland in his life and certainly was not an Orangeman (He was married to a Catholic so couldn't have been).

The royal inniskilling Fusiliers were based in Portsmouth for many years (Which is how my GGF joined them) so that may help explain why there were so few Orangemen in their ranks as well.

good point.

It is possible that sashes were worn over uniforms or possibly under them. I don’t know myself but in my opinion it is not likely as a shiny orange sash with silver badges on it worn over a uniform would make a good target for German snipers .The 36th (Ulster) Division was not entirely a Orange/Unionist/UVF division. It did have Catholics in it. But like the 10th and 16th Irish Divisions they also had men from England Scotland and Wales.

The 36th Division
8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th and 15th battalions Royal Irish Rifles (UVF)
9th 10th and 11th battalions Inniskilling Fusiliers (UVF)
9th battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers (UVF)

The 36th Division took part in the battles of the Somme , 3rd Ypres , CambraI , Messines and the ’Kaiserslacht’.

10th (Irish) Division
5th battalion Royal Irish Regiment
6th battilion Royal Irish Rifles
5th battalion Connaught Rangers
6th battalion Leinster Regiment
5th and 6th battalions Royal Dublin Fusiliers
6th and 7th battalions Royal Munster Fusiliers
5th and 6th battalions Inniskilling Fusiliers
5th and 6th battalions Royal Irish Fusiliers

The 10th division took part in campaigns in Gallipolis , Salonika and the Palestinian front

16th (Irish) Division
6th battalion Royal Irish Regiment
7th battalion Royal Irish Rifles
6th battalion Connaught Rangers
7th battalion Leinster Regiment
8th and 9th battalions Royal Dublin Fusiliers
8th and 9th battalions Royal Munster Fusiliers
7th and 8th battalions Inniskilling Fusiliers
7th and 8th battalions Royal Irish Fusiliers

The 16th Division served throughout the war on the Western Front and fought in numerous actions including the battles of the Somme , 3rd Ypres , CambraI , Messines and the ’Kaiserslacht’.

The 16th (Irish) Division was made up mostly of Irish nationalists but not entirely. Many who wanted to join the fight ,from Ulster ,didn’t want to join the 36th and would come down south to join regiments in the 10th and 16th divisions or other British regiments. the 10th (Irish) Division was not realy raised on political lines, so to speak.

MrMicra

I am not suggesting that all members of the Ulster division were orangemen (as I said above one winner of the victoria cross of nine was an orangeman and this is the rate for male protestants at that time).
If anything given the fact that so many of them were young there would have been fewer orangemen among protestants in the Ulster division than among the Irish protestant population at that time.
After all people often joined the orange order to get promotions and that might not have been much of an issue for teenagers and men in their mid 20s.

As for the point that the sash would have been worn inside the uniform; I am sure that this was the case for some soldiers.

That said: I have been to the Ulster memorial at Messines and there are paintings there of men fighting in sashes. In fact it did seem to me at the time that there was a deliberate attempt to conflate the loyal orders and the Ulster division.

As for the point that there were catholics in the 36th. That is of course true. In 1915 the claim was made that there were 15 catholics in the division (almost certainly an understatement of the real numbers). The Ulster division was raised from the UVF. The Irish divisions were raised from the INV. INV groups who joined en bloc joined regiments affiliated with the Irish divisions.
There were very few catholics in the Ulster division.

R.Dub.Fusilier

i had a look at "Irish Voices From The Great War" by Myles Dungan and he said in it that Kevin Meyers argues that they didnt wear sashes. Dungan reckons that some did wear an orange colour and that a Major Gaffikin waved an orange coloured hankey above his head and some had orange lillies and that a sergeant from the Inniskilling Fusiliers was wearing a sash.