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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2015
During the Second World War tens of thousands of volunteers from the island of Ireland served in the British armed forces. This article will examine the effect of an Irish background on the volunteers’ experience of the British forces. It will explore the ways in which the military authorities facilitated and encouraged the development of a pluralist Irish identity. In doing so the article will demonstrate how the volunteers’ ideas of Irishness were influenced by British perceptions and it will assess to what extent volunteers from North and South really shared a common Irish identity. The article will also place the Irish experience of the British forces in the context of a multinational army incorporating personnel from, among others, Scotland, Wales, the dominions and Poland.
1 Drogheda Independent, supplement, 7 Nov. 1942; memo by Minister for Defence, ‘Assistance being afforded to Irish citizens to enlist in the British Army’, 5 Sept. 1941 (N.A.I., DT S6091A).
2 The Leader, 15 Apr. 1939. See also accusation of treason in The Leader, 26 Jun. 1945.
3 Brewer’s dictionary of Irish phrase & fable (www.oxfordreference.com) (11 Oct. 2012).
4 Pioneering work included Dungan, Myles, Distant drums: Irish soldiers in foreign armies (Dublin, 1993)Google Scholar and Doherty, Richard, Clear the way! A history of the 38 th (Irish) Infantry Brigade, 1941–1947 (Dublin, 1993)Google Scholar.
5 Jeffery, Keith, ‘The British army and Ireland since 1922’ in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery (eds), A military history of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996), p. 437Google Scholar.
6 Doubts were expressed in the Dominions’ Office about the figure of 45,000 for Southern Irish volunteers: see Maffey note, 12 Mar. 1945 (T.N.A., DO 35/1230).
7 McEwen, Yvonne, ‘Deaths in the Irish Regiments 1939–1945 and the extent of Irish volunteering for the British Army’ in Irish Sword, xxiv (2004–5), pp 81–98Google Scholar.
8 Girvin, Brian, The Emergency: neutral Ireland 1939–45 (London, 2006), pp 274–275Google Scholar.
9 Doherty, Richard, Irish men and women in the Second World War (Dublin, 1999)Google Scholar, chapter two; McElwaine, Aidan, ‘The oral history of the Volunteers’ in Brian Girvin and Geoffrey Roberts (eds), Ireland and the Second World War: politics, society and remembrance (Dublin, 2000), pp 107–120Google Scholar; Jenkins, Jeremy, ‘“This a private shindy or can any bloke join in?”: why neutral Irish volunteered for service in the British forces during the Second World War’ in Irish Sword, xxviii, no.114 (Winter, 2012), pp 419–453Google Scholar. See also O’Connor, Steven, Irish officers in the British Forces, 1922–45 (Basingstoke, 2014), chapters 1–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Roberts, Geoffrey, ‘Neutrality, identity and the challenge of the Irish volunteers’ in Dermot Keogh and Mervyn O’Driscoll (eds), Ireland in World War Two: neutrality and survival (Cork, 2004), p. 276Google Scholar.
11 Girvin, The Emergency, chapter eight. For an alternative analysis of the reasoning behind government policy see Kelly, Bernard, Returning home: Irish ex-servicemen after the Second World War (Dublin, 2012)Google Scholar.
12 Barr, Niall, Pendulum of war: the three battles of El Alamein (London, 2005), p. 46Google Scholar. At the final battle of El Alamein roughly fifty per cent of Montgomery’s forces were not British but Indian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Free French, Polish and Greek.
13 Leslie, Shane, ‘The Shamrock Club’ in D. D. Sheehan (ed.), British Legion victory souvenir: being the special victory number of the British Legion annual (Dublin, 1946), p. 39Google Scholar.
14 Interview with Columbanus Deegan, O.F.M. (Imperial War Museum Sound Archive (henceforth I.W.M.S.A.), 25513).
15 Interview with Mark Downey (U.C.C., Volunteers Project Sound Archive (henceforth V.P.S.A.)).
16 Interview with Lt. Cdr. C. Glanton (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
17 Interview with Wg. Cdr. E. O’Toole (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
18 Cronin, Fergus, ‘A bed of roses’ in Interfuse, xli (1986), p. 54Google Scholar (Irish Jesuit Archive).
19 Inglis, Brian, West Briton (London, 1962), pp 60–61Google Scholar.
20 Devlin quoted in Doherty, , Irish men and women in the Second World War, p. 49Google Scholar.
21 British North African Force (henceforth B.N.A.F.), appreciation and censorship report no. 12 covering period 19–25 Mar. 1943, p. 2 (T.N.A., WO 204/10381).
22 Ibid.
23 See Crang, Jeremy, ‘The British soldier on the home front: army morale reports, 1940–45’ in Paul Addison and Angus Calder (eds), Time to kill: the soldier’s experience of war in the west, 1939–1945 (London, 1997), pp 60–76Google Scholar.
24 Morale report, Feb.–May 1942, AC/G(42)20, 12 Jun. 1942, p. 14 (T.N.A., WO 163/51).
25 Morale report, May–July 1942, MC/P(42)1, 11 Sept. 1942, p. 6 (T.N.A., WO 163/161).
26 B.N.A.F., appreciation and censorship report no. 21 covering period 23–29 May 1943, p. 4 (T.N.A., WO 204/10381).
27 Morale report, Feb–May 1942, p. 7 (T.N.A., WO 163/51).
28 Minutes of the 18th meeting of the Morale committee, MC/M(43)8, 31 Aug. 1943, pp. 1–2 (T.N.A., WO 163/161).
29 Report on Irish Troops mail covering period 31 Mar.–13 Apr. 1944, p. 1 (T.N.A., WO 204/714).
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid, pp 1–2.
32 Report on mail to Éire examined by No. 6 Base Censor Group, 15–30 Apr. 1944, p. 1 (T.N.A., WO 204/714). Emphasis in original.
33 ‘Extract from Postal Censorship Report’, 1 Oct. 1941 (T.N.A., PREM 3/129/5).
34 Newspaper cutting, 26 Sept. 1941 (T.N.A., PREM 3/129/5).
35 Minute by Winston Churchill, 6 Oct. 1941 (T.N.A., PREM 3/129/5).
36 Memo, ‘Proposed Formation of an Irish Brigade’, 25 Oct. 1941 (T.N.A., PREM 3/129/5).
37 Ibid.
38 Doherty, Yvonne McEwen, ‘Irish volunteers and volunteer deaths in Irish regiments, 1939–1945’ (M.Sc. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2003), pp 49Google Scholar, 59.
39 Army Council instructions for 1 Nov. 1941 (T.N.A., W.O. 293/26).
40 By 1944 three Irish battalions ceased to exist due to their inability to replace gruelling losses in the Mediterranean theatre: Jeffery, ‘The British army and Ireland’, pp 442–3.
41 John Horsfall, an officer in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, wrote that his company received a draft of soldiers mainly from Warwickshire and Stafford in 1943: Horsfall, John , The Wild Geese are flighting (Kineton, 1976), pp 96–97Google Scholar. Similarly, in 1942 Sydney Swift, a conscript in the Royal Sussex Regiment, was assigned to a draft for the London Irish Regiment. He had no Irish connections: I.W.M., S. F. Swift, MSS 19814, p. 21.
42 Memo, ‘Proposed Formation of an Irish Brigade’, 25 Oct. 1941 (T.N.A., PREM 3/129/5).
43 John Andrews to Winston Churchill, 18 Dec. 1941 (T.N.A., PREM 3/129/5).
44 Andrews to Clement Attlee, Lord Privy Seal, 23 Jan. 1942 (T.N.A., PREM 3/129/5).
45 Memo, ‘“Nationality” Classification of Personnel Serving in Proposed “Irish” Bde’, 1 Jan. 1942 (T.N.A., PREM 3/129/5). The Southern Irish proportion in these regiments was even smaller: 4 per cent and 19.2 per cent respectively.
46 Blake, John, Northern Ireland in the Second World War (Belfast, 1956), p. 200Google Scholar.
47 Doherty, , Clear the way, p. 57Google Scholar. See also remarks of men from the Special Raiding Squadron serving alongside the Irish Brigade at Termoli, October 1944 in Mortimer, Gavin, Stirling’s men (London, 2005), p. 155Google Scholar.
48 Attlee to Andrews, 2 Jan. 1942 (T.N.A., PREM 3/129/5); Doherty, , Clear the way, p. 7Google Scholar.
49 Bartlett, Thomas, ‘“A weapon of war yet untried”: Irish Catholics and the armed forces of the Crown, 1760–1830’ in T. G. Fraser and Keith Jeffery (eds), Men, women and war (Dublin, 1993), p. 77Google Scholar.
50 Denman, Terence, Ireland’s unknown soldiers: the 16 th (Irish) Division in the Great War, 1914–1918 (Dublin, 1992), p. 105Google Scholar; Doherty, , Clear the way, p. 2Google Scholar.
51 Johnstone, Tom, Orange, green and khaki: the story of the Irish regiments in the Great War, 1914–18 (Dublin, 1992), p. 214Google Scholar; Denman, , Ireland’s unknown soldiers, p. 94Google Scholar.
52 Bowman, Timothy, The Irish regiments in the Great War: discipline and morale (Manchester, 2003), pp 61–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
53 Regimental booklet, ‘Songs of the Irish Brigade’ (Royal Irish Fusiliers’ Museum, Armagh).
54 Interview with Maj. Gen. D. O’Morchoe, 9 Nov. 2009; Brookes, Dom Rudesind, Father Dolly: the Guardsman monk (London, 1983), p. 126Google Scholar.
55 Whittle, Mary, He walked tall: the biography of Canon Michael Casey (Wigan, 2002), p. 66Google Scholar; interviews with Maj. Gen. O’Morchoe, 9 Nov. 2009 and Maj. W. H. Roche, 17 Nov. 2009.
56 Interview with Maj. Desmond Fay (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
57 Doherty, , Clear the way, p. 297Google Scholar.
58 Interview with Maj. Gen. O’Morchoe, 9 Nov. 2009.
59 Interview with Jack Harte (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
60 Maj. Gen. H. E. N. Bredin, ‘Foreword’ in Doherty, , Clear the way, p. viiiGoogle Scholar; interview with Maj. Fay (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
61 Interviews with Maj. W. H. Roche, 17 Nov. 2009 and Jack Harte (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.). Two British soldiers serving in Irish regiments, Ronald Hooper and Sean Crampton, also reported banter between Northern and Southern Irish but no real animosity (I.W.M.S.A., 27349 and 17352 respectively). On the other hand, a Dublin soldier who served in the same battalion as Hooper (1st Royal Ulster Rifles) recalled that on St Patrick’s Day the men would ‘all join together and have a hooley and it’d end up in a row and as well on 12th July’. He claimed that the unit was ‘80% Orangemen’ and that some Southern Irish soldiers ‘never returned after their first leave’: interview with Thomas Meehan (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
62 Anon, ., ‘The Irish Brigade visits the Pope’ in The Sprig of Shillelagh, xxvii (1943–5), p. 24 (Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers’ Museum, Enniskillen)Google Scholar.
63 Fr M. Pelly to Fr Provincial, 30 June 1944 (Irish Jesuit Archive, Dublin, CHP2/33 (19)).
64 Interview with Fl. Lt. M. Quayle, (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
65 Interview with Wg Cdr J. H. Simpson, 11 Dec. 2009.
66 Interview with Wt. Officer D. Murnane (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
67 Interviews with Maj. Gen. O’Morchoe, 9 Nov. 2009, Maj. Roche, 17 Nov. 2009 and Wg. Cdr. Simpson, 11 Dec. 2009.
68 Brennan, Michael, ‘This is it chaps: the story of Brendan Finucane’ (B.A. in Journalism thesis, Dublin City University, 2002), p. 30Google Scholar.
69 Ross, Peter, All valiant dust: an Irishman abroad (Dublin, 1992), p. 10Google Scholar.
70 Morris, Sister Mary, ‘The diary of a wartime nurse’, p. 127Google Scholar (I.W.M., MSS 80/38/1).
71 McAughtry quoted in Doherty, , Irish men and women in the Second World War, pp 50–51Google Scholar.
72 Interview with Wg. Cdr. O’Toole (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
73 Interview with Capt. Don Mooney, 22 Jan. 2010.
74 Irish Times, 13 May 1985.
75 Interview with Wt. Officer Murnane (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
76 S. F. Swift papers, p. 21 (I.W.M., MSS 19814).
77 Jocelyn, Robert, Major D. M. (John) Kennedy, M.C.: A tribute (Galway, n.d.), p. 44Google Scholar. An officer who served in four Irish battalions during the war also acknowledged that among the soldiers religion simply did not matter but that this may have changed when they returned to their homes in Ireland: interview with Maj. Gen. H. E. N. Bredin (I.W.M.S.A., 12139).
78 Churchill quoted in Irish Press, 14 May 1945.
79 Memo by Sir John Maffey, 21 May 1945 (T.N.A., DO 35/1229).
80 Interview with Fl. Lt. Quayle (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
81 Interviews with Capt. J. Jermyn and Cpl. J. Neylon (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
82 Interview with Lt. J. Jacob (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
83 Interviews with Lt. B. Bolingbroke, Sub Lt. M. M. A. D’Alton and Wt. Off. Drumm (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
84 Interview with Capt. D. Baynham (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
85 Irish Press, 29 Nov. 1934; The Leader, 15 Apr. 1939.
86 See O’Connor, Irish officers, chapter six; Jeffery, Keith, Ireland and the Great War (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar, chapter four.
87 Interview with Wt. Officer Drumm (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
88 Ibid.
89 Memo, ‘Assistance being afforded to Irish citizens to enlist in the British Army’ by Minister for Defence, 5 Sept. 1941 (N.A.I., DT, S6091A).
90 Interview with Wg. Cdr. O’Toole (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.). See also interviews with Fl. Lt. M. Quayle (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.); Air Marshal William MacDonald (I.W.M.S.A., 4610) and Sqn. Ldr. Vigors, Tim, Life’s too short to cry: the compelling memoir of a battle of Britain ace (London, 2008), pp 78Google Scholar, 203.
91 Interview with Columbanus Deegan, O.F.M. (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
92 Interview with Lt. J. Jacob (U.C.C., V.P.S.A.).
93 Ibid.
94 See French, David, Military identities: the regimental system, the British army, and the British people, c.1870–2000 (Oxford, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chapter 4.
95 French, Craig F., ‘The fashioning of esprit de corps in the 51st Highland Division from St Valery to El Alamein’ in Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, lxxvii, no. 312 (Winter, 1999), p. 280Google Scholar.
96 Delaforce, Patrick, Monty’s Highlanders: 51 st Highland Division in the Second World War (Barnsley, 2007), p. 25Google Scholar. See also Crang, Jeremy A., ‘The Second World War’ in Edward M. Spiers, Jeremy A. Crang and Matthew Strickland (eds), A military history of Scotland (Edinburgh, 2012), pp 572–584Google Scholar.
97 French, , ‘The fashioning of esprit de corps’, p. 290Google Scholar.
98 French, , ‘The fashioning of esprit de corps’, pp 281–282Google Scholar.
99 Army Council instructions for 1 November 1941 stated that, ‘The principle has always been accepted that as far as possible, officers and other ranks of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish nationality shall be posted to units having appropriate territorial connections, but operational requirements and other overriding commitments, such as immediate reinforcement demands, requirement of specialists and tradesmen prevent the full application of this principle’ (T.N.A., W.O. 293/26).
100 Martin Johnes, ‘Welshness, Welsh soldiers and the Second World War’, conference paper presented at ‘Fighting for Britain? Negotiating identities in Britain during the Second World War’, University of Edinburgh, 29 June 2012. Available from http://martinjohnes.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/welshness-welsh-soldiers-and-the-second-world-war/; accessed 20 Sept. 2013.
101 Major General Macmillan of the 15th (Scottish) Division took a similar view, asserting that: ‘I do not think that it is essential to prove that there are more than 50% Scots in the units concerned, as the basis of my argument is that the wearing of the Balmoral will promote divisional esprit de corps and is not a sign that the wearer is a Scotsman, but only that he belongs to a Scottish Division’: French, , ‘The fashioning of esprit de corps’, p. 284Google Scholar.
102 Johnes, Martin, Wales since 1939 (Manchester, 2012), p. 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
103 C.M.F.-B.N.A.F., appreciation and censorship report no. 34 covering period 16 Nov.–15 Dec. 1943, Part B – Canadian Expeditionary Force, p. 4 (T.N.A., W.O. 204/10381).
104 C.M.F.-B.N.A.F., appreciation and censorship report no. 38 covering period 1–15 Feb.1944, Part B – Canadian Expeditionary Force, p. 4 (T.N.A., W.O. 204/10381).
105 Deere, Alan, Nine lives (Canterbury, 1991), p. 25Google Scholar.
106 Nelson, Hank, Chased by the sun: the Australians in Bomber Command in World War II (Crow’s Nest, 2006), p. 57Google Scholar. Emphasis in original.
107 Polish airman quoted in Zamoyski, Adam, The forgotten few: the Polish Air Force in the Second World War (London, 1995), p. 44Google Scholar.
108 General Sikorski quoted in ibid, p. 46.
109 Gretzyngier, Robert, Poles in defence of Britain (London, 2001), pp 3–7Google Scholar.
110 Zamoyski, , The forgotten few, p. 60Google Scholar.
111 Wawer, Zbigniew and Suchcitz, Andrzej, ‘The Polish army as part of the defence forces of Scotland 1940–1945’ in Eugenia Maresch (ed.), Polish Forces in defence of the British Isles 1939–1945, (London, 2006), p. 94Google Scholar.
112 Interview with Columbanus Deegan (I.W.M.S.A., 25513). I would like to thank Prof. Brian Girvin, Dr Robert Armstrong and the external readers for their comments on earlier drafts of this article, and the Irish Research Council for funding the Ph.D. research on which this article is based.
