Irish Officers in The British Forces 192245

In the last decade there has been a plethora of books about Irish soldiers in the First World War, yet the fact that recruitment to the British forces continued into the interwar period and the Second World War has received comparatively little attention.

Irish Officers in the British forces, 1922-45 looks at the reasons why young Irish people took the king's commission, including the family tradition, the school influence and the employment motive.

This book is a social history of Irish officers in the British army in the final half-century of Crown rule in Ireland. Drawing on the accounts of hundreds of officers, it charts the role of military elites in Irish society, and the building tensions between their dual identities as imperial officers and Irishmen, through land agitation, the home rule struggle, the First World War, the War of Independence, and the partition of Ireland. What emerges is an account of the deeply interwoven connections between Ireland and the British army, casting officers as social elites who played a pivotal role in Irish society, and examining the curious continuities of this connection even when officers’ moral authority was shattered by war, revolution, independence, and a divided nation.

Utilising new source material, this book demonstrates the complex nature of Irish involvement with British institutions and its Empire.

Sent to France in August 1914 the North Irish Horse (NIH) were the first British reservist regiment to see action (at Le Cateau) before fighting as rearguard on the long retreat to the outskirts of Paris.