A chara, - I write in support of the powerful letter from Una O'Higgins O'Malley (November 23rd) impressing upon us the need for the cleansing effect of truth in respect of the participation of Irish nationalists in the Great War. On the British side their contribution to the war effort is minimised or ignored, and on the Irish side it is claimed (still with depressing frequency) that they were fighting for any cause (Belgium, England/Britain, the Empire) other than that of Ireland itself. In both cases their motives and achievements have been misrepresented.
Last Thursday (November 19th) in the Royal College of Surgeons the Scottish historian Niall Ferguson, introducing his new book The Pity of War, challenged the "myth" of 50,000 Irish dead and stated that the "true" figure was 27,500 (to be precise, 27,405); but he did not seem to know that the Tyneside Irish were Irish. The involvement of the Tyneside Irish Brigade in the war also shows very clearly the impact on recruitment in September and October 1914 of the passage of the Home Rule Bill through the House of Lords and of the Royal Assent on September 18th, 1914 (see J. Keating, Tyneside Irish Brigade: History of its Origin and Development, 1915). Sad to say, the Tyneside Irish Brigade was annihilated at the beginning of the Somme offensive (1,968 casualties on July 1st-3rd, 1916 in the attack on Contalmaison), and the memory of its heroic sacrifice for Ireland was no less effectively expunged from the historical record. - Is mise, Gerald Morgan,
FTCD, Trinity College, Dublin 2.