Book Description

This book examines the impact of World War One on the people of Limerick. It traces how recruitment, which was weak at the commencement of the war, increased locally after the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, John Redmond, issued his call for Irish nationalists and others to enlist, and, as the war progressed, how Sinn Féin separatists impinged on recruiting efforts. It also shows that the British War Office were unwitting contributors to the separatists’ cause by their ill-conceived actions that only assisted them in their political cause and anti-recruiting campaign. The book also tracks how the separatists gained considerably in both military and political strength locally through the inept policies that changed public support for the war effort, thereby paving the way for the Sinn Féin victory in the General Election of December 1918; thus giving credence to the author and poet Robert Graves’ description that Limerick had become a Sinn Féin-ridden town. Further to this, it demonstrates that, despite the best efforts of local capitalists to procure war work contracted out by the British War Office, only very little was achieved; the War Office ensuring that the vast array of such work was to remain in Britain. Some local capitalists did, of course, gain as a result of the war; these were notably those such as merchants and farmers who were in a position to provide Britain and her army with all the foodstuffs that she required. Those on low incomes, namely the working class who also provided the majority of recruits for the armed forces, were to suffer through the ever-increasing price rises. This book, therefore, reveals a complex scene where social and political alignments reflect much of what was happening nationally, but also had uniquely local characteristics.