The Irish Revolution, 1916-1923 Read Online Free PDF Page B

would accrue to dependents. Some held a genuine conviction that the war was morally justified, and there was considerable sympathy among Irish Catholics for their Belgian counterparts. The German actions in Belgium, where Catholic priests were targeted, also meant that the Irish Catholic hierarchy were influential supporters of the war effort in its early stages (Fitzpatrick, 1996: 388–90; Pašeta, 2008: 76).
    It is estimated that over 200,000 Irish men fought in the British Army during the First World War. There was an initial rush to enlist, with 44,000 joining up in the first five months. The realisation that the war would be a prolonged and bloody one soon cooled such ardour and recruitment figures fell to 46,000 in 1915. By 1916, when the horrors of the war were being brought home by conflicts like the Somme, enlistment declined noticeably and progressively; from 1916 to 1918 the annual enlistment figures were 19,000, 14,000 and under 11,000 respectively (Fitzpatrick, 1996: 388).
    The UVF was rewarded for its support with the formation of a distinct 36th Ulster Division that would endure considerable losses, especially at theSomme in 1916 where it lost over 5,000 men. As a result, the war and the Somme, in particular, hold a very significant place in unionist political and cultural memory. The Irish casualties at the Somme were not exclusively from the Ulster Division; 4,300 men from the 16th Division also perished (Horne, 2008: 12). Redmond’s hopes that the National Volunteers would be treated similarly to the UVF were dashed, although most southern Irishmen served in the 10th and 16th Divisions which played significant roles, and suffered considerable losses, in important engagements at Gallipoli, Guillemont and Ginchy (Dungan, 1997: 12). An estimated 27,405 Irish soldiers were killed in the war, approximately 14 per cent of those who enlisted, which is a similar proportion to overall British Army casualties (Fitzpatrick, 1996: 392).
    The suspension of home rule created a very difficult position for the Irish Party. It had achieved its main aim in theory but not in practice. There was no longer a need to campaign for home rule, nor an opportunity to get on with the business of running a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. The influence that the Irish Party enjoyed from 1910, with the Liberals dependent on its support, disappeared as the main British parties moved closer together, eventually forming a coalition government in 1915, in which prominent Ulster unionists were given posts, including Edward Carson as Attorney General. Redmond was treated badly by the government which refused to allow the National Volunteers to be used for the defence of Ireland or to form a specific division for them. His hopes that Ireland might benefit from some of the economic spoils of the war were also dashed when the War Office failed to award any significant contracts to Irish firms. The continued suspension of home rule, Redmond’s political impotence and his continued support for a war that grew increasingly less popular in Ireland meant that his party was in a precarious position even before the events of Easter 1916 in Dublin.

GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
    A detailed documentary history of unionism is contained in Patrick Buckland’s Irish Unionism, 1885–1923 (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1973). This work is complemented by Ulster Unionism and the Origins of Northern Ireland, 1886–1922 (Gill and Macmillan, 1973) which provides a detailed account of the tactics adopted by Ulster unionists to resist the third home rule bill and their acceptance of home rule for six counties in 1920. Digitised copies of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant are on the website of the Public Record of Northern Ireland, http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives/ulster_covenant.htm

    The classic account of the political controversy created by the third home rule bill is A. T. Q. Stewart, The Ulster Crisis, 1912–14 (Faber, 1967). There