Tracing First World War ancestors
Published in Features, Issue 4 (July/August 2014), Volume 22
Detail of a decorative border by Harry Clarke in Ireland’s Memorial Records 1914–1918, compiled by the committee of the Irish National War Memorial. (Eneclann)
British Army Service Records
Most researchers tracing an Irish First World War ancestor will start with the Army Service Records, the largest of all the British services. Their poor survival is one of the
reasons we have no definitive figures for the Irishmen who fought in this war. In 1940–1 approximately two thirds of all First World War soldiers’ service records were destroyed in the London blitz: of the original 6.5 million service records, only 2.5 million now survive. Recently findmypast re-indexed these ‘burnt records’, and in the process recovered the names and partial service files of over 600,000 soldiers whose records had been lost. For nearly a century these names have been obscured because they were incorrectly indexed. These ‘recovered’ names may significantly add to the numbers of Irish soldiers who fought in the Great War.
Medals
Several other sources bridge the gap in the British Army Service Records. Everyone who served overseas was entitled to a British and Victory (Campaign) medal. Inevitably, fewer medals were awarded for gallantry or distinguished service. When awards were given, however, it was published with a ‘mention in the dispatches’ in the London Gazette. In addition to the traditional British Armed Services, the medal cards include women’s services, the Indian Army and some civilians. The UK National Archives, Kew, holds over 5.5 million First World War army medal cards, now accessible on-line. The medal cards include the recipient’s name, service number, rank and unit.
Navy
Between 1914 and 1918 Irishmen also served in the Royal Navy, the Merchant Navy and the Royal Air Force, which came into being on 1 April 1918, formed from the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. Naval and Air Force records survive intact and are currently being digitised. Some are already available on the UK National Archives website.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
It’s usually easier to trace those Irish soldiers who died, because they appear on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website, and also in the eight-volume Harry Clarke-illustrated Irish war dead. Currently Google is sponsoring a project in which Eneclann and the In Flanders Fields Museum are updating the CWGC lists, correcting errors and including many soldiers not previously named in the official records. Independent scholars like Tom Burnell and groups like the Mayo Peace Park are preparing county records of the Irishmen who fought and died in the Great War and have already added hundreds of names for each county surveyed. Local newspapers and church memorials are incredibly useful in this endeavour, as they recorded the men and women in their locality.
‘Shot at dawn’
Many men who served between 1914 and 1918 took their own lives during or after the war. Others were court-martialled and shot for refusing to engage in the mindless carnage of trench warfare. The list of 340 individuals ‘shot at dawn’ includes men serving in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Royal Irish Rifles. These names are also omitted from the official records. Their stories deserve to be told and their names included amongst the Irish war dead.
Perhaps by the close of the centenary commemorations in 2018 we may actually have a clearer idea of how many Irish people were involved in the First World War. Recovering their names and personal histories is not simply an exercise in collating names—it’s a means of reclaiming our own historical narrative.
Fiona Fitzsimons is director of Eneclann, a Trinity College campus company, and of findmypast Ireland.
Further reading
British Army medal index cards 1914–1920, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/medal-index-cards-ww1.htm.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission, www.cwgc.org/.
In Flanders Fields Museum, www.inflandersfields.be.
Royal Navy Service records, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
records/royal-naval-seamen.htm.
search.findmypast.ie/search-world-Records/british-army-service-records-1914-1920.
Shot at dawn, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_at_Dawn_Memorial.
Personal Histories
On this Day
April 24
- 1951 Enda Kenny, TD for Mayo West (1975–97) and Mayo (1997–2020), leader of Fine Gael (2002–17) and taoiseach (2011–17), born in Derrycoosh, Islandeady, near Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
- 1945
Above: The steamship Monmouth Coast—torpedoed by a German U-boat near Tory Island on 24 April 1945. (Paul Johnson Collection)
During the last week of the Second World War, the Monmouth Coast, an unescorted steamship en route from Sligo to Liverpool with a cargo of barytes ore from the mines of Ben Bulben, was torpedoed by a German U-boat some seven miles north-east of Tory Island. The captain and fifteen crewmen (including two Irishmen) lost their lives, but one managed to survive, thanks to two locals from Arranmore. Two days later, whilst beachcombing on the north-eastern coast of the island, they spotted a life-raft floating in a remote sandy inlet; they rowed out to it and lifted the tarpaulin, to discover a wide-eyed teenager, Derek Cragg (17) from Liverpool, the mess-room boy from the Monmouth Coast. He explained that the ship had gone down very quickly and that those of the crew who managed to leap clear were sucked down after it. He, too, was dragged down but somehow managed to make it back to the surface, where he spotted the life-raft and clambered on board. He was given every assistance by the islanders and safely repatriated, but had the north-easterly wind that drove him 25 miles blown him into the adjoining inlet, his raft would have been smashed to pieces. Over 30,000 Allied merchant seamen, of every nationality, lost their lives during the war. Despite our neutrality, Irish Shipping lost two ships. The Irish Pine was torpedoed off Greenland in November 1942 with the loss of all 33 on board, and the Irish Oak was sunk in the North Atlantic in May 1943, though her entire crew was rescued by a sister-ship, the Irish Plane.
- 1912 Justin McCarthy (82), Home Rule politician, leader of the anti-Parnellite faction (1891–6), historian and novelist, died.
- 1916 The Easter Rising began.Sir Ernest Shackleton and five of his crew set out on their epic 720-nautical-mile rescue mission in the James Caird, from Elephant Island to South Georgia.
- 1974 The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) announced that Carnsore Point, Co. Wexford, would be the site of its planned nuclear power station.
May 19
- 1935
Above: ‘Lawrence of Arabia’—his father was in fact Sir Thomas Chapman of South Hill, Delvin, Co. Westmeath.
T.E.—Thomas Edward—Lawrence (46), the legendary ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, died as a result of a motorcycle accident in Dorset. For much of his adult life Lawrence was a troubled man. Though his key role in the British-inspired Arab revolt (1916) against Ottoman Turkish rule earned him international celebrity, he was torn by guilt over Britain’s post-war betrayal of the Arabs with the implementation at Versailles of the notorious Sykes–Picot Agreement. Then there was the issue of identity. At the tender age of ten he discovered that his parents were not married, meaning that he and his four brothers were illegitimate. Later he was to learn that ‘Mr Lawrence’, his father, was, in fact, Sir Thomas Chapman of South Hill, Delvin, Co. Westmeath, who, though married with four daughters, had fled with their governess, Sarah Lawrence, first to Wales—where ‘Ned’ was born—and finally to London. He was eventually to find himself increasingly drawn to his father’s homeland. A close friend of George Bernard Shaw and his wife Charlotte—GBS had helped him to edit his major work, Seven pillars of wisdom (1926)—he mentioned his desire in his surviving letters to visit Ireland and often referred to the works of Seán O’Casey, James Joyce and J.M. Synge. Indeed, he hoped to write a biography of Sir Roger Casement. It seems that he never did try to make contact with his half-sisters. In 1954, almost twenty years after his death, some of his old friends visited the two surviving ones, who were living at 39 Northumberland Road, Dublin. They told them that they had followed their half-brother’s career with great interest but likewise had made no attempt to contact him.
- 1870 The Home Government Association of Ireland was founded by Isaac Butt with the aim of establishing a federal system for the United Kingdom, which would grant Ireland a parliament responsible for national affairs. Succeeded by the Home Rule League (1873).
- 1868 Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, son of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803), brewer and writer who restored St Patrick’s Cathedral (1860), died.