Dublin "Peace Day" Parade 1919

Judgement Day

I've just started listening to my new audio CD set of "Troubles" by J.G.Farrell and there's mention in it of the 1919 Peace Day Parade in Dublin to mark the ending of the Great War the previous year. By all accounts the parade through the streets of Dublin was a massive affair involving 6,000 soldiers from Irish regiments and reviewed by the Viceroy Lord French outside the Bank Of Ireland on Dame Street.

Despite the obvious success of the event and 'apparently' enthusiastic, large crowds - see pic below - within less than six months Sinn Feiners had tried to assassinate the Viceroy in the Phoenix Park.



View up Westmoreland Street from the roof of Trinity College.
http://www.andrewcusack.com/2009/02/01/victory-parade-dublin/

Anyway, I'm just putting it out there as it was a fascinating period in Irish history. Anybody else got some picture links for the parade?

As is so often the case when looking into things like this, one is sent off in all sorts of unexpected directions and none more than this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Despard - Charlotte Despard was Lord French's sister as well as being a member of Cumann na mBan, opposing the Treaty, locked up by the Free State government and ending up buried in the Republican Plot at Glasnevin Cemetery! The sister of a man who, despite being a Home Ruler in his later years, favoured using airpower against Sinn Fein targets - you couldn't make it up.

pedroeibar1

Judgement Day wrote: »

As is so often the case when looking into things like this, one is sent off in all sorts of unexpected directions and none more than this:......you couldn't make it up.

‘Lady’ Broderick is another – always known by that name, she was more correctly ‘the Hon.’ Albinia Broderick, being a daughter of Viscount Middleton. She preferred the Irish version of her name, Gobnait Ni Bhruadair. She learned Irish on Scarriff Island c 1900.

Firmly Anti-Treaty, she was largely ignored but was arrested once and held in Kenmare (in the Lansdowne Arms) and as the room in which she was locked was too high from the ground to escape she amused herself by firing everything in it out the window – including the contents of a feather mattress. On another occasion when she heard that Free State troops were about to encircle some of her Anti-Treaty friends she (then aged about 60) cycled in the middle of the road, blocking and not allowing their Crossley to pass her. Eventually she had to stop from exhaustion and one of the soldiers shot at her, giving her a surface wound in the buttock.

Seamus McConville has a bit about her here on a local hotel site but it is not very accurate. She deserves a book...

johnny_doyle

not a picture but some info about the parade running order and route (Sackville St was still in ruins and avoided)

http://johnny-doyle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/victory-parade-dublin-1919.html

the other picture that usually crops up is of a group of tanks from 17th Armoured Car battalion going by the saluting stand (appears in the TPC book on The Irish Civil War)

http://johnny-doyle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/17th-armoured-car-battalion-tank-corps.html



your photo and the one I've mentioned were taken by Joseph Cashman.

gobnaitolunacy

johnny_doyle wrote: »

not a picture but some info about the parade running order and route (Sackville St was still in ruins and avoided)

http://johnny-doyle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/victory-parade-dublin-1919.html

One would have expected more Irish regiments in it, where were the Munsters and Connaught Rangers?

johnny_doyle

if I remember correctly, a decision was made not to post Irish battalions back to Ireland, even though many no longer contained just Irish troops.

Fratton Fred

johnny_doyle wrote: »

if I remember correctly, a decision was made not to post Irish battalions back to Ireland, even though many no longer contained just Irish troops.

A lot of them were very mixed.

My great grandfather was in 2 royal inniskilling and they were based in Portsmouth for several years before heading off to Africa, so a lot of local lads just joined them.