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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Irish Badge


jonathanb2701

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post-34497-1224421203.jpgI have just bought this pin back badge recently with some other First World War related badges. Does anyone know what it is or what it represents ? There is no makers name on the back , as you would usually expect.

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Just a guess but the iconography strongly suggests a badge linking mainland GB pro-Ulster Unionist sympathisers with the Ulster Unionist Party over the water.

There was a British League for the Defence of Ulster etc .. on first sight that would be my guess.

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The Maid of Erin harp on a green flag I would have thought was more nationalist than unionist. Would it be one of Redmond's Volunteers? Went on to serve in 10th and 16th Divisions. Just a thought.

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Grandad was in the 36th Division, in the Royal Irish Rifles his cap badge has a harp ( is mostly a harp) so I would go with a protestant organisation, hope someone knows....

Barbara..

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You will find the harp is quite common in Irish Regiments of whatever general persuasion. The harp on a green flag was a nationalist symbol but I stand to be corrected of course. Its an interesting one. We have to remember that Irish nationalists were not necessarily all against the union with the crown at that time, some favoured the so-called 'Hungarian dual-monarchy' approach. Home rule within a common union.

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Also just wondering if this is a home front type badge...maybe even a women's organisation...not sure...

I've been making an Irish Regiment collection so this is interesting to me...

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Isn't it just one of the common affiliation badges worn unofficially by the UDR as was? Theres usually a couple on ebay.

Mick

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I suspect that this may have been the lapel badge of a female voluntary association - possibly something to do with the Irish VAD movement. It is not necessarily Ulster-related, indeed the green background to the harp suggests a south of Ireland origin. (Ulster badges often display a red hand). Having recently been looking through some old newspapers, I found many references to southern Irish women assisting with the war effort - part of a hugh Irish contribution to the Great War which, for political reasons, has largely been air-brushed out of history.

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I think that the lack of the Red Hand precludes any relationship with Ulster.

Kind regards

Woolly

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A "Voluntary Service League" was proposed in 1911 as a form of volunteer service that may well have had a pacifist slant, while in 1918 a similarly-named female organisation known as "The Volunteer Service League" was in operation with branches in various parts of the United Kingdom. The badge must therefore have been an Irish branch.

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On the subject of inconography - such things are rarely clear cut ... for example Erin go bragh (Ireland forever) was the slogan on a huge banner at an Ulster Unionist convention against the first Home Rule Bill.

People in those times did not think in terms of Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland as they grew to do in the aftermath of partition.

I find many, many examples of men (and women) from what would be termed Ulster Protestant/Unionist backgrounds quite happily referring to 'good old Ireland' and themselves as 'Irish' etc etc in a very comfortable fashion.

If it is the Womens' Service organisation of 1911 vintage, I would say the use of the Union Flag and Harp flag would be very possible .... in the aftermath of Easter 1916 I would have strong doubts whether any Irish orgainsation (outside of Ulster for obvious reasons!!) would entertain a Union Flag (The butcher's apron in Republican parlance) on their badge.

However, if such an organisation was composed of the 'great and the good' ... i.e. the 'big house, anglo-Irish aristocracy ... then it may just fit into the 1918 category.

Des

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It is surely an exaggeration to suggest that no Irish organisation would have wanted a Union Flag on its badge after the Easter Rising. What about the British Legion? Or the Orange Order? Or militant anti-Sinn Fein organisations such as "The Brotherhood of Avengers" (a group active in County Cork circa 1919-21).

Regarding the "big house girls", I can imagine them flocking to patriotic voluntary organisations such as the VADs - and in this context I am not entirely sure what is meant by "Anglo-Irish". Constantine FitzGibbon claimed that this was "an odious and meaningless term".

Looking again at the badge which forms the subject of this thread, I am more than ever convinced that it represents a (southern) Irish patriotic voluntary organisation. The Irish harp is the "angel" version which seems to have been preferred by Unionists, while the words "United we Stand" would also point to a Unionist origin.

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Exaggeration?

The Royal British Legion is a 1920s construct and while it did have numerous Irish branches, its very title precludes it from being considered under the broad umbrella of an 'Irish' organisation.

As for the Orange Order ... touche. But my point was that 'Irish' organisations - in the post 1916 political environment - would not have regarded the Union flag as a symbol likely to gain them sympathy or members. That is why I make my point about the Anglo-Irish aristocracy.

Some may view this as an 'odious and meaningless term' but the fact is that is exactly how they were viewed, how they behaved and how they are still known in my part of the country to this very day.

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Protestants formed about 12 per cent of the population of Leinster, Munster and Connaught at the time of the Great War, which implies that they encompassed far more people than the miniscule numbers who formed the Irish aristocracy. They were, moreover, concentrations of Protestants in Dublin, County Cork and in certain other parts of what subsequently became 'The South'. The figures are hard to come by, but I have come across a reference to east Cork being about 40 per cent Protestant. Even if we assume that no Roman Catholics supported the Union (and that is a big assumption), there would still have been sufficient numbers of people to maintain patriotic (by which I mean pro-British) organisations such as we suspect the "Voluntary Service League" may have been. How else can one explain the imagery of the badge, which seems to me to display southern (as opposed to northern) Irish characteristics?

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I would like to thank everyone for replying to my query about the W.W.1 period Irish badge. It is interesting to see a wide range of opinions, as to its orgins. I bought this badge along with a First World War Royal Navy veterans badge, and a Ulster Volunteers Red Cross Nursing Corps badge, from a person in Toronto, Canada who sold them on Ebay. The person selling them believed that they had came from the Drogheda area.

In the period during and after 1918 to 1922 troubles, alot of southern Irish Protestants and people loyal to the British Crown emigrated to Canada.

My own idea is that the badge belonged to some kind of Home Front support group for the war effort.

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The "shaking hands" motif might imply a Canadian orign ("hands across the seas"), but having just carried out a Google search I note that the angel-harp on green design appeared on the badge of the 36th Ulster Division in conjunction with a Union Flag. (So it may not be southern Irish at all)

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