British military presence in Ireland 1906

Jawgap

riffmongous wrote: »

Perhaps on the battlefield, but off the battlefield they seemed to have been treated differently......

They constituted just two per cent of the membership of the force, yet they were the recipients of eight per cent (271) of all death sentences imposed by its courts-martial......


wiki link

......and 6% of the VCs awarded

Jawgap

ledgebag1 wrote: »

Hi guys as the title says I am looking for some info on this?

Such as where they present?
To what extent?
Where were they present?

Any links info or help on this would be great

Thanks

OP, it's a while since I read it but Con Costello's book - "A most delightful station: The British army on the Curragh of Kildare, Ireland, 1855-1922" might have some more information on what you are after.

Fratton Fred

riffmongous wrote: »

But the recruitment rate was much lower in Ireland than in Britain, with the exception of Ulster. And a large proportion of those who originally joined up in the south came directly from Redmond's volunteers.

In Britain, it was conscription.

ledgebag1

Jawgap wrote: »

OP, it's a while since I read it but Con Costello's book - "A most delightful station: The British army on the Curragh of Kildare, Ireland, 1855-1922" might have some more information on what you are after.

Magic, thanks a million

riffmongous

Fratton Fred wrote: »

In Britain, it was conscription.

I'd assume the recruitment stats refer to the period before conscription, or only volunteers, I don't have access to the original numbers to check though. But including conscript numbers in recruitment figures wouldnt make much sense

riffmongous

Jawgap wrote: »

......and 6% of the VCs awarded

That's also fairly noteworthy, I wonder if these any negative correlation between the regiments where the honours were awarded and those with the court martials..

tac foley

Jawgap wrote: »

......and 6% of the VCs awarded

...and my maternal grandfather only got a military cross. He's still lying underneath it, in Templeux-le-Guérard cemetery on the Somme.

tac

Jawgap

riffmongous wrote: »

That's also fairly noteworthy, I wonder if these any negative correlation between the regiments where the honours were awarded and those with the court martials..

Btw - the statement "Estimates on the number of executed ranging from 25 to 30 of the Irish war dead were victims of court martial executions" - if that figure relates to FGCMs and GCMs - it probably includes the 1916 signatories.

The stats also show that your chances of getting shot depended more on what you were accused of, than where you were from......

Between 1914 and 1924, there were 3,342 death sentences passed by GCMs and FGCMs - leading to 438 (13%) executions. Over 2000 death sentences were handed down for desertion, but 'only' 14% were carried out; sleeping at post, 0.5% of the death sentences were carried out; sedition - 0%; cowardice 7%; rebellion (Ireland) - 16%; and murder 56%.

The Royal Artillery were obviously a troublesome lot they recorded 104 capital convictions (13% executed).

The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (who had a respectable number of VC recipients recorded 29 capital convictions with 5 (17%) carried out. The corresponding figures for the

• Dublin Fusiliers - 22 & 3
• Munster Fusiliers - 37 & 2
• Connacht Rangers - 17 & 1 (the period would include the mutiny)
• Royal Irish Rifles - 63 & 5

The figures, on a regiment-by-regiment basis do not suggest that Irish Regiments fared better or worse than any other regiment or Corps - nor do they suggest a higher level of sentences carried out.

Jawgap

Also better to be in the ranks.......

2,938 privates or equivalent were sentenced to death - 316 (11%) carried out.

NCOs - 134 sentenced - 24 carried out (18%)

2/Lt - 3 sentenced, 100% executed.

However, I'd suggest (but I've zero evidence to back this up) that officers, NCOs were perhaps less likely to have to face capital charges......

Fratton Fred

You do have to feel for the 2/Lt s, first to climb the ladder in to no man's land and face certain death, or don't go and get shot for cowardice.

CDfm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

You do have to feel for the 2/Lt s, first to climb the ladder in to no man's land and face certain death, or don't go and get shot for cowardice.

Or the 2/Lt's Worwsick and Lucas and the two civilians executed in Guinness Brewery in 1916.

http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/cathedral/memorials/WW1/Basil-Worswick&print=true

The police in Ireland weren't so much British Bobby's but were more like a militia.

Lets not forget Private James Crozier who was too drunk to stand when executed by someone who thought it was ok to execute sentries who had fallen asleep and German prisoners.

http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWcrozierF.htm

Judgement Day

^^^^ Welcome back!!

CDfm

Santa Cruz wrote: »

Spot on. I heard that the Monto women went on day trips to the Curragh to "entertain" the troops

I don't know if this is true. The story of the Wrens of the Curragh , camp followers and girlfriends living in deplorable conditions under the furze on the Curragh is widely known.

riffmongous wrote: »

I think a lot of the soldiers from the disbanded British-Irish regiments joined the Free State forces though, according to Wiki anyway, although I wonder if that distinguishes between the peacetime regiment strength and those who would have been recruited for WW1. Also I wonder how many would have remained in the army after the post-war downsizing, interesting all the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Fusiliers#Disbandment

There was no prohibition but more than likely you had pro treaty WWI veterans and unemployed young men sign up together with pro treaty veterans from the civil war.

Redmond had led a recruitment drive during the Great War and there was no shortage of trained military personnel.

CDfm

Judgement Day wrote: »

^^^^ Welcome back!!

Thank you.

I can't remember last time I was here.

CDfm

riffmongous wrote: »

But the recruitment rate was much lower in Ireland than in Britain, with the exception of Ulster. And a large proportion of those who originally joined up in the south came directly from Redmond's volunteers.

Do you have a source for that ?

Some , like Tom Kettle, were genuine in their opposition to the German invasion of Belgium.

Francis Ledwege , the poet went for adventure.

The likes of James Connolly and some trade unionists and the more extreme nationalist's , small in number, were opposed to joining up.

Unemployment and emigration were still high and the army pay was twice what an unskilled worker earned,

riffmongous

CDfm wrote: »

Do you have a source for that ?

Some , like Tom Kettle, were genuine in their opposition to the German invasion of Belgium.

Francis Ledwege , the poet went for adventure.

The likes of James Connolly and some trade unionists and the more extreme nationalist's , small in number, were opposed to joining up.

Unemployment and emigration were still high and the army pay was twice what an unskilled worker earned,

A military history of Ireland, by Bartlett

police estimates suggest that the Irish Volunteers eventually yielded at least 24,000 men to the army

CDfm

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/world-war-1/ireland-during-world-war-1-the-facts-figures-30249108.html


Well some 210,000 irish served. 49,,000 died.



Some accounts of the 1916 discuss how irish officers were undermined in preventing excesses. The attitude of the Army to the southern irish was certainly different.


It goes some way in explaining the how the Home Rule Party votes collapsed in the post war election.

There is nothing wrong with recounting how the army behaved in Ireland and how that fed into the politics of what was going on. Put the Curragh Mutiny into the mix and it shows how the military related to Ireland.

1906 also was mid the Gaelic Revival and the last of the land acts , so context is very important.

riffmongous

But of that number 60,000 were already enlisted

25,000 were UVF

Since the Catholic:protestant recruitment rate was at least 1:1, In the north, another 25000 must have come from the north.

So redmond's volunteers would have accounted for at least 25% of those who signed up in the south

CDfm

riffmongous wrote: »

So redmond's volunteers would have accounted for at least 25% of those who signed up in the south

They weren't Redmond's Volunteers as Redmond had made a play for political control, nonetheless their origin were with the Gaelic revival movement.

So their is a political interpretation part to this.

My impression is that a lot of the volunteers were thrre for economic reasons. It was well paid.

The royal visits to Dublin had been popular and the population of west cork volunteers might have had different motivations for signing up.

ledgebag1

Lads and lassies get back to helpin me, come on

CDfm

ledgebag1 wrote: »

Lads and lassies get back to helpin me, come on

If you are trying to find out about British Army life , I suggest you start with the Garrison towns.

http://irishgarrisontowns.com/soldiers-homes-a-refuge-from-temptation/

1906 was after the Boer Wars but is close in time to find information.

Soldiers were young , James Connolly had been a boy soldier in Cork.

Details of crime and court martials would also be interesting.

Jawgap

You could try some biographies / autobiographies. A lot of WWII senior commanders started in the Edwardian British Army......here's an extract from a biography of Alexander....(I scanned it so there may be some typos from the OCR software)....

The Army had no real function except in war. The notion of maintaining an army to prevent war was not then born: the soldier's purpose was to wage it, and the waging of war could not be taught except by war itself. Therefore the conscientious officer wanted war, just as an actor desires live performance not constant dress rehearsal, but he thought it unnecessary to do much to prepare himself for it. What the Brigade taught in peacetime was conduct. This meant two things.

First, the importance of hierarchy and discipline. A guardsman will look at a man's shoulders before the face above them, to see what stripes or stars they carry. Obedience to the superior officer is laid down by regulation and accepted by habit. Drill is its most obvious manifestation.

Moving together, halting together, shifting feet and rifles in exact synchronization and alignment, create the expectation of command and an instinctive response to it which hold together a body of men in the totally different situations of battle when everything else is confused.

Careful attention to dress and routine strengthens their cohesion. It is no coincidence that uniform and uniformity are linked words. Drill and turn-out and punctuality give the Sergeants something to shout about on the parade ground and so establish their authority, but all three evoke a response which is less grudging than most guardsmen would admit. Perfection in something so simple as a polished boot or belt, or the kaleidoscopic change of a battalion on parade from one formation to another, induces satisfaction and ultimately pride. For centuries discipline of this kind has been an incentive for the regular soldiers of all armies. In the Brigade of Guards it became a point of honour.

Conduct also meant a standard of behaviour. Among officers the most important assumption was that one should not let another down.
So basic was this rule that in the Brigade a special word was applied to any breach of it, to 'cart'. You could cart a brother-officer by leaving him all evening with a plain girl while you danced off with the belle of the ball (you could also cart the plain girl by abandoning her), and you could cart him by borrowing his polo-pony and laming it, or in battle by failing to relieve him on time. Betrayal at any level led to ostracism in the mess. You must not fail to repay a debt, nor cheat at cards, nor reveal a confidence, nor speak maliciously of women.

There were certain rules of etiquette too. An officer must not be seen to carry a suitcase or even a parcel. He must not reverse in waltzing. He could smoke Turkish, but not Virginian, cigarettes. Some of these conventions survived until the opening year of the Second War, and may seem absurd, but there was also a tolerance in the Brigade which even sophisticated officers like Osbert Sitwell and Harold Macmillan came to admit as an influence on their whole lives.

Privacy was respected, and variety of character welcomed. If you did not choose or could not afford to hunt or play polo, and preferred to paint or read, it was not held against you. While intellectual accomplishment was rare, it was not despised.

Shyness was considered a drawback, not a deformity, and heartiness thought vulgar unless wit or adventurousness were allied to it. The importance of leadership was little emphasized, since there were so few opportunities to display it, the men living for most of the time apart from their officers.

The serious study of war was almost unknown. All the qualities required of an officer in battle were assumed to be latent, fostered in peacetime by lively society and energetic sport, tempered by chivalry, comradeship, generosity and a certain decorum. It is best summed up by their definition of a gentleman as a man in whose presence a woman feels herself to be a lady.

The whole Brigade of Guards was of this character, and they knew themselves to be collectively an elite.

tac foley

...so awfully nice to see that little, if anything, has changed.

Just kidding.

tac

riffmongous

CDfm wrote: »

They weren't Redmond's Volunteers as Redmond had made a play for political control, nonetheless their origin were with the Gaelic revival movement.

They were often referred to as Redmonite Volunteers, see page 2

http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0966.pdf#page=20

CDfm

riffmongous wrote: »

They were often referred to as Redmonite Volunteers, see page 2

http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0966.pdf#page=20

Maybe so, but they weren't in Easter 1916.

For the purposes of the thread it gives a wrong impression of the military presence in 1906.

riffmongous

CDfm wrote: »

Maybe so, but they weren't in Easter 1916.

For the purposes of the thread it gives a wrong impression of the military presence in 1906.

The posts quoted were referring to world war 1

CDfm

riffmongous wrote: »

The posts quoted were referring to world war 1

The OP must have picked 1906 for a reason and I don't know why.

The military/paramilitary in 1906 were the Army and IRB.

By 1914, there were The Army , IRB , Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army and UVF.


(I have mentioned the Boer War and Major John McBride had been a Volunteer.)

Subsequently there were a few royal visits before the war.

I can only imagine that the OP is tapping into the period before these changes occured.

ledgebag1

Hiya

I am really just trying firstly to clarify if the British army were present in Dublin at this time, that's the first question.

Secondly, if so, where were they stationed, were they a visible presence on the streets of Dublin or throughout towns for that matter too.

Could they be seen off duty around the city, or moving around the city in uniform.

Essentially trying to understand to what extent might they have been present, am I making any sense?

thanks

riffmongous

Is there any particular reason for 1906? (You dont need to be specific, just wondering if it needs to be 1906 exactly ) Or how much of a range can there be?

CDfm

The first part of your question is military records

The census doesn't name soldiers but if you scroll to the end here you will see the military mentioned. The census of 1901 and 1911 are either side of 1906.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/exhibition/dublin/law_order.html


Next were they visable around the city and how would you prove it ? Photos maybe but maybe marriage records. Perhaps events were recorded in the newspapers of the time.

Why the questions OP?