Was the Great War our War ?

[Dawson]

There is a new RIA/RTE book and radio series with a green poppy on the cover, called OUR War: Ireland and the Great War. Its basic premise is, I think, that the Great War was our war because the profound impact that it had on Irish politics, society and culture and because of the 200,000 Irish men who fought and the over 30,000 who died in the war.
Is that a plausible argument or a revisionist one ?

[polito123]

It's an RTE take on history, aka a West British take on it.

Ask the majority of people about the war, and they will have no interest in it. 1916, 1922 are events that Irish people identify with, not this war.

[JollyRedGiant]

No war is our war - all wars are the responsibility of the ruling classes on a worldwide basis - none are the responsibility of working class people.

WW1 was an imperialist war fought over the control of colonial empires.

[louis bernard]

It's an RTE take on history, aka a West British take on it.

Ask the majority of people about the war, and they will have no interest in it. 1916, 1922 are events that Irish people identify with, not this war.

Please speak for yourself and not for other Irish people. I for one identify very much with the Great War. Two of my father’s uncles fought in it, one in the Royal Navy, the other in the Munster fusiliers.

[polito123]

Please speak for yourself and not for other Irish people. I for one identify very much with the Great War. Two of my father’s uncles fought in it, one in the Royal Navy, the other in the Munster fusiliers.

They fought for Britain, if you're proud of that, fair play, but I wouldn't be. My Grandfather fought in the War of Independence, that's something I am proud of.

[Kev408]

200,000? Talk about revisionism! I suspect that before the bubble bursts on the reality of 'WW1 and Irish enlisters' that figure will jump another couple of hundred thousand.

Some fought because they thought it was the right thing to do but most Irish (particularly in what we now call today the Republic) fought out of necessity. Same thing with WW2.

[Cogadh]

Nope it wasn't in our name to parahrase that glib cliche. It was an imperialistic war brpught about by the inbred ruling classes of the ancien regime. An absolute waste of too many good men.

[Vega1447]

There is a new RIA/RTE book and radio series with a green poppy on the cover, called OUR War: Ireland and the Great War. Its basic premise is, I think, that the Great War was our war because the profound impact that it had on Irish politics, society and culture and because of the 200,000 Irish men who fought and the over 30,000 who died in the war.
Is that a plausible argument or a revisionist one ?

The latter imo.
Irishmen enlisted, fought and died for the British army in WW1.
That makes it "our" war only in the sense that "our" people died in it.
Same is true of
the Boer war
the Napoleonic wars
:
:

Actually they were British wars that Irishmen died in.

[Catalpa]

I will be at the Thomas Davis Lecture in Dublin City Library on Monday night at 7pm

If anyone else is going mail me and we can meet for chat.

I have mixed feelings about all this

Truly Ireland was involved but IMO we should have stayed out of it.

I don't think the men who went to the Fronts were 'traitors' and I admire their bravery but there has been a tendency in recent years to swing the pendulum from on extreme to the other.

A Great Big Mistake but not acts of Treason.



I was out on the Somme in May to visit where my Grandfather fought

glad I did it.

Hopefully and please God next year to Verdun...

[Thranduil]

What do they mean when they say 'our war'? It was 'our war' because technically we were participants (albeit as part of the UK).....if that's what they mean.. this is a fact. Starting the book with the blatantly obvious.... ie 'Our War' is kind of provocative, as though they are challenging a specific viewpoint, this makes the book seem at a glance... more political, so yes - it does seem (at a glance) revisionist, which may or may not be a good or a bad thing depending on many factors.

The introduction on the RTE page is interesting....

1918 The Great War: Cathal Goan

RTÉ is proud to remember the contribution of Irishmen in the Great War. For too long the contribution and human sacrifice of Irishmen in the Great War was obscured by a nationalist fog.

This is a political position. I for one think the work could be done without constructing the dichotomy of nationalism versus WW1 service in Britain's armies, it would take some skill but it could be done and it would be just as valuable as a historical piece, this seems unnecessarily controversialist to me.