The Military Service Pensions Collection (1916-23) is being digitised and made available online. Consisting of applications for pensions from members of the Irish Volunteers, Citizen Army, Hibernian Rifles, Cumann na mBan, Fianna Éireann, IRA and their dependants, the MSPC has already proved an essential source for the history of the Irish revolution, but has a much greater purpose, according to the editors. “It is a record of all sorts of people and the variety of life they lived.” And it is on this latter aspect that the contributors to this valuable, fascinating collection of essays concentrate.
There is much here about struggles (with poor health, poverty, precarious employment, unsympathetic bureaucracy), about different forms of dependence (women who couldn’t support themselves and whose husbands couldn’t support them or their children; siblings on each other), and about fear of growing old and having no one to depend on. Illness shows itself in multiple forms; mental illness due to trauma, yes, but also illnesses that were hidden and endured, and constricted and shortened lives: miscarriages, premature births, TB, alcoholism, depression. Much light is also shone on Irish masculinity in these analyses of applications.
Different contributors take different approaches. Some focus on the experience of individuals, some on gender experiences (mainly women), some on family histories, while some explore language, youth, poverty, illness, crime, etc. For example, many of the dependants’ applications, analysed by Cécile Chemin, expose the vulnerability of women and children; she refers to “a cold system”, “narrow categories” and “rigid boundaries”.
[ A history of Ireland’s Military ArchivesOpens in new window ]
One of the great virtues of the MSPC is the insight it gives into the “ordinary” lives of “ordinary” revolutionaries, and Brian Hughes uses it to gain insight into the socio-economic circumstances of Dublin IRA members, what they did and didn’t do, and why some dropped out of the national struggle. Marie Coleman explores how the intense sensory experience of involvement in the revolution subsequently affected participants, as revealed in their pension applications. Other themes covered include Irish republican policing, the munitions strike of 1920, the Kilmichael ambush, Irish-language applicants, imprisonment and ill-health, single women’s experiences, and the civil-war atrocities in Kerry.
Although there is much bleakness, there are also some positive experiences: marriages that resulted from revolutionary involvement, births of children, enduring friendships and acts of kindness.
