This book adds a major culture-based study to the field of Irish history. It addresses a topic and touches on themes that continue to be relevant and debated in contemporary Ireland. Dr.Myers makes a major contribution to the “New Military History” of Ireland and adds the memory of the First World War of one of the “small nations” that emerged in the wake of that conflict to the numerous memory studies that exist for the primary combatant nations (Britain, France, and Germany). One of the most useful aspects of this monograph is that it gives life to the culture of a minority sub-community in Ireland and addresses the challenges this community faced in order to remain active, and the way that community interacted with the majority of Irish people throughout the twentieth, and into the twenty-first century. Therefore, this project is not simply a snapshot of a specific event in Irish history, but examines the way that the memory of the war and those who retained that memory changed and evolved over the course of a century.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION: THE GREAT WAR AND MEMORY IN IRISH CULTURE 1
Irish Politics and the Great War: A Brief Overview 7
Irish Participation in the First World War 12
The British Legion 18
Chapter Organization 20

CHAPTER ONE: NOT A DAY OF REJOICING: THE EVOLUTION OF
REMEMBRANCE DAY AND THE POPPY APPEAL IN IRELAND, 1919-1939 29
Introduction 29
Remembrance Day: Dublin 32
Cork 41
Derry 48
Belfast 55
The Poppy Appeal 61
Opposition to Remembrance Day and the Poppy Appeal 79

CHAPTER TWO: BUILDING AN IRISH IDENTITY: WAR MEMORIALS IN
IRELAND 1919-1939 88
Dublin 94
Cork 102
Derry 109
Belfast 116
Private War Memorials 122
International Irish War Memorials 127

CHAPTER THREE: KEEPING THE HOME FIRES BURNING: MEMORY
AND THE GREAT WAR IN IRISH POPULAR CULTURE, 1919-1939 140
Battlefield Pilgrimage 141
Memory of the First World War in Irish Popular Culture 149

CHAPTER FOUR: SERVICE REWARDS: HOUSING, UNEMPLOYMENT,
AND EX-SERVICEMEN IN IRELAND, 1919-1939 178
Housing 182
Unemployment 197

CHAPTER FIVE: “WALTZING” TO A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF
THE GREAT WAR 209
Great War Memory during the Second World War 210
Great War Memory after the Second World War 213
The Troubles 228
The War in Popular Culture: Literature 233
Music 240
Education 245
Public Discourse on the Great War in Ireland 248
Drama 254
Academic History 256

CHAPTER SIX: CREATING “A FUTURE TOGETHER”: THE RESURRECTION
OF GREAT WAR MEMORY IN IRELAND SINCE 1987 259
Poppies 266
Popular Culture and the Memory of the Great War 271
Literature 288
Academic History 292
CONCLUSION 296

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Irish Research Series, No.59