Involvement of Royal Irish regiment and Royal Dublin Fusiliers in batt

[Guest rhcpireland]

Hi I am researching The royal Irish regiment and the royal Dublin fusiliers involvement in the Somme just want to know where they made biggest impact and did that do anything to effect the outcome of the war.

[Colin W Taylor]

RHCP

Welcome to the forum.

This is a difficult question. These two regiments were composed of a number of different battalions. Most of these will have fought as parts of different infantry divisions whilst in France. It is best to go to the 'long long trail' website (link found top left) where under the history of regiments will tell you what battalions composed these regiments and therefore what division each served in. In turn these different divisions served for different lengths of time during the Somme fighting. For example the Dublins: http://www.1914-1918.net/dubs.htm. They had battalions in four different division in France alone (the 4th, 16th, 29th and 63rd Divisions) - to my memory all four fought on the Somme at one stage or another. The R Irish Regt are equallly complicated (http://www.1914-1918.net/rireg.htm).

To make matters more complex the battle of the Somme was broken down into a number of battle honours and phases which were dictated by time and space. Most divisions fought in different stages of the battle for different lengths of time.

To my memory the 16th (Irish) Division contained battalions of both regiments and fought with distinction around the village of Guillemont during the Battle of the Somme but other battalions of these regiments fought as part of other divisions and fought in other engagements and phases in the battle.

This must sound very confusing but unfortunately you've asked a very wide question which is difficult to answer without detail. Is there a specific individual soldier or battalion of either regiment which you are specifically interested in?

It is truly difficult to gauge whether an individual battalion or division was physically able to affect the outcome of the war with one specific action or event (though I'm sure that other boffins on the forum may challenge this).

If this sounds like gobbledegook there are written explanations in sections of the above website that explain what battalions and regiments were and how individual soldiers fitted in.

I hope however this helped in some way.

Kind regards

Colin

[mentorscotus]

My grandfather John (NO 13236)Daly was in Princess Victorias Own and the R.I.F. The local library here has a book giving names of men who returned from WW1,in which he was named as a returnee,yet we cannot trace him anywhere after 1918.I wondered if he continued with the regiment but enquiry at Armagh has not drawn up a lead. Ideas?