Irish disquiet on the western front

On the Western Front in the first World War, there were plenty of Irish fighting with the British forces during Easter week 1916 who would have considered themselves to be nationalists. Indeed many were National Volunteers fighting for the promise of Home Rule, and who enlisted as a response to John Redmond's rallying call.

Tom Kettle, a Nationalist MP and poet, had even travelled on an arms-raising mission to Germany in 1913, before joining the 16th (Irish) Division. Willie Redmond (brother of John) was another Nationalist MP who died during the war. The poet Francis Ledwidge was a close friend of Thomas MacDonagh, but died while serving in the Inniskilling Fusiliers.

However much many of the Irish empathised with the cause of Irish independence, there seems to have been very little support among the troops for the rebellion. Many, in fact, felt betrayed. Capt Stephen Gwynn, a Nationalist MP serving in France, said that his men "felt they had been stabbed in the back".

The Germans attempted to demoralise the Irish soldiers serving on the Western Front by passing out placards. One announced the fall of Kut to the Turkish, while the other read "Irishmen! Heavy uproar in Ireland. English guns are firing at your wifes and children". A raiding party crawled through no man's land to capture the placards, and it was reported that Irish soldiers responded to the German taunts by singing Irish songs and Rule Britannia.

While some British officers made mention of the Irish soldiers' continuing commitment to the fight after the Easter Rising, the event did exacerbate the suspicion already felt towards the nationalist Irish serving in the British army. Tom Kettle had prophesised that the Easter rebels "will go down to history as heroes and martyrs, and I will go down - if I go down at all - as a bloody British officer".

Many of the veterans returned home to Ireland to find a changed political landscape. In all, between 25,000-35,000 Irish-born soldiers died in the first World War. However, many of the soldiers who returned to an increasingly nationalist Ireland received a cold and sometimes hostile welcome. Kettle's words were soon borne out as the veterans and the dead of the first World War were not only overshadowed by the people and events of the Easter Rising, but would soon find that their contribution to the British cause was considered somewhat shameful in a newly independent Ireland.