Irish soldiers in the British Army in India

Bill2673

Though I'm not a military enthusiast, i thought this might be of interest.

My grandfather was born in Pakistan, as my great grandfather was an officer in the British Army.

My Greatgrandfather fought in the Boer War, served in the Raj and then in WW1.

My grandfather was born in a town call Quetta, which lies on the border of Pakistan with Iran. At the time this was part of India, and I guess would have been a frontier town of sorts, i.e. the empire did not stretch much or at all into modern day Iran or Afghanistan.

That family (My Greatgrandfather, grandmother, grandfather) left Quetta around 1916 as far as i can make out. I visited Quetta some years back, I was in pakistan at the time and thought I would visit because of the family connection.

The town was described in the early 1900s as a 'Paris of the East', in other words it would have had some decent architecture compared to most other desert towns. But these were all destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930s, so today there are no surviving buildings from the raj era; though the town does still retain a canton type structure with military and officials in one area and normal joe soaps in another.

The only relics of the raj era are a military museum and a christian graveyard.

The museum was interesting, as it showed photos of what the place was like in its heyday, and because of kooky stories such as soldiers going out into the desert to play football and getting heatstroke.

The more interesting thing was the christian graveyard. The earliest grave was around 1860. The latest was around 1940s. There were about 2000 headstones in total. Bear in mind that Quetta is on the edge of the desert, but on the opposite side of the desert from mainland India. Also, that it is not a big town. So the grave compared to the town appeared huge. And also interesting was that well over half the graves were either Irish or Welsh. And not just soldiers. Also spouses, children, teachers, nurses, nannies. Most Irish graves carried the town and county where the person was born, and each irish province was well represented. it was very interesting, in the middle of nowhere, a long, long way from home and completely forgotten. Very few tourists in Quetta and none of the locals have any interest.

Pakia

Thats a shame that no local takes interest in their city's history. Probably the poverty, horrible law & order is the reason.

I visited southern Balochistan last year and was amazed by the scenery and hospitable people. hope to visit Balochistan and Quetta again in a year or so.

xflyer

What isn't generally known is that apart from soldiers there were many Irish people involved in the administration of the empire. It was seen as a good career move. So it's no surprise that you'll find lots of Irish names. It wasn't just the Anglo Irish either. We're were very much British back then.

Of course that sits uncomfortably with our comfortable view of ourselves as being oppressed and colonised. We were enthusiastic colonisers too it turns out. You won't find that in school curriculum.

The Dublin Fusiliers and the Munster Fusiliers were originally formed by amalgamating several of the 'European' regiments of the East India company. It can't be a particular coincidence that they were turned into Irish regiments.

Certainly an interesting part of Irish history.

Morpheus

sounds facinating, must google earth that place now!

speaking of irish/indian/british links... of course, as we all know, mckee barracks was really an indian barracks built by mistake in dublin...:pac: