Ireland and the Great War

by Keith Jeffery

This is the first book to give a unified picture of Ireland's experience of the First World War. Unlike any previous work it identifies the similarities of experience of constitutional nationalists, separatist republicans and unionists, and deals with civilian, social, economic and cultural aspects, as well as the purely military. The book also relates the experience of the war and its subsequent commemoration to the politics of twentieth-century Ireland, North and South, up to and including the recent peace process.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published December 11, 2000

About the author

Keith Jeffery, MRIA was a Northern Irish historian specializing in modern British, British Imperial, and Irish history. He obtained his BA, MA, and PhD (1978) degrees from St. John's College, Cambridge, the latter under the supervision of John Andrew Gallagher, and was Professor of British history at Queen's University Belfast.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The great Irish historian Roy Foster has argued that the First World War is one of the most decisive events in the history of modern Ireland, one with a profound impact on Ireland's politics, economy, and society. Yet in spite of this the war remains an under-examined event, lacking the attention given to the Famine, the Home Rule campaign, and the Anglo-Irish War.

Given this deficiency, Keith Jeffery's book is a welcome addition to the historical literature. Developed from a series of presentations given in the Lees Knowles Lecture series at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1998, this book provides an examination of a number of aspects of Ireland and the war. In four chapters, Jeffery examines why Irishmen signed up for the conflict, the experience of the war, the impact of the war on Irish culture, and how Ireland has remembered the war. In doing so, he tackles a number of knotty questions and demolishes a few myths, addressing the complicated motivations behind enlistment, the dream of Irish Nationalist politicians to organize distinctively Irish military units, and the political complications within Ireland of honoring a war fought for the British - one that many Irish revolutionaries so resolutely opposed.

Supplemented with a useful bibliographic essay, Jeffery's book is a valuable overview of a frequently neglected aspect of Irish history. Though hardly a comprehensive survey of the subject, it addresses many of the aspects of the war and its role in Irish history. Until the war receives the specialized attention it deserves, this will remain the best starting point for understanding how the war affected Ireland and how the Irish people have grappled with its memory.