Dublin's Great Wars

About this book

"This book offers a new military history of the city and county of Dublin in the era of the First World War and the Irish Revolution, setting the narratives of British soldiers and Irish republicans alongside each other. Much of the writing of Dublin's history between the start of the Home Rule crisis in 1912 and the end of the Irish Civil War in 1923 has been dominated by the Easter Rising of April 1916, along with its causes and its consequences. There are certainly important studies of the city (less so the county) which recognise the interconnections between the two conflicts in terms of their impact on society, politics and the economy. Meanwhile, excellent material on the Rising and the wider Irish Revolution has emphasised how the war created 'the long-awaited opportunity for rebellion' and made Irish republicans believe that an attempt at revolution was necessary to seize the political initiative. Yet the war raging in Europe and elsewhere in 1914-18 is generally treated as a backdrop to this turning point in Irish history. From the end of mass commemorations of the war in the 1920s until the 1990s, much First World War service by men and women from what is now the Republic of Ireland was forgotten, their story overwhelmed by that of different heroes and heroines: the rebels of 1916. Similarly, Dublin's First World War narrative tends to pay little attention to the Rising and the wider Irish Revolution. Indeed, it has long been dominated by the story of part of D Company of the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the 'Dublin Pals', at Gallipoli."--Provided by publisher.