Memorial Records fiasco - thoughts please

[Desmond7]

Aye. Re Wexford man: Loose I know, but still born Ireland.

[centurion]

t still born Ireland.

So the Duke of Wellington was Irish? Despite his famous comment on the point.

I think we can all agree that the pulished records are tosh but deciding who should really be on the roll may not be that simple.

[Desmond7]

I don't think anyone with any sense would even attempt to portray the Duke of Wellington as Irish in any meaningful sense.

[depaor01]

Which would rule out some Doughboys who considered themselves Irish. I guess there has to be some criteria but it may be difficult establishing common ones everyone would sign up to. Would you include a Wexford born man whose parents emigrated with him when he was an infant for example? Or the man born on the Irish estate owned by his English parents?

Considering yourself Irish isn't enough in my book. Your other two examples are Irish-born, so would be included.

[centurion]

I think the last two posts contradict each other - which is my point really

[museumtom]

Consider that we do not know the original criteria for inclusion in IMR, hows about each researcher draws up his own set of guidelines for his own proposed database?.

Cheers.

Tom.

[hen190782]

Dave

Nice one - I believe that there has been a letter about exclusion of Irishmen in non-Irish regiments .

Nigel

[hen190782]

What about English soldier who leaves army in, say, 1905 and marries a Belfast lass and then re-enlists in1915? Irish by residence but English by nationality?

Nigel

[Desmond7]

Fitzroy: I would take him on the basis that if he settled in Belfast with said lady he would have a demonstrable/concrete community link over a 10-year-period - i.e. residence, employment, perhaps church attendance, offspring etc? And, one assumes that he would have returned to Belfast and wife at end of war but for his demise. If he lived day and daily in the city for 10 years and became a part of that community then I feel he would qualify (but that's in my world)

[centurion]

Using place of birth to determine nationality is awfully problematic - on that basis at least one member of Lloyd George's cabinet was German and another was Indian and Éamon de Valera was American

[isadore]

All, I was at the launch, the presentation given there by Piet Chielens, Co-ordinator, In Flanders Fields Museum to explain the project seems to have been lost in the furore .

The In Flanders Field Museum Name List project is looking correct the information contained in IMR.

Corrections can be sent to namenlijst@ieper.be.

Isadore

[centurion]

Before anyone can do that we need to know what the criteria for being on it are - just like the CWGC do for general commemoration What defines Irish for example? What is the cut off period? Is it service in any force in WW1 (there will be Irishmen who died in other countries' service do they go on?. Without this being specified it still has the appearance of having gone off at half cock

[corisande]

For once I find myself wholly in agreement with Centurion

Before anyone can do that we need to know what the criteria for being on it are - just like the CWGC do for general commemoration What defines Irish for example? What is the cut off period? Is it service in any force in WW1 (there will be Irishmen who died in other countries' service do they go on?. Without this being specified it still has the appearance of having gone off at half cock

The whole point of my earlier point with examples was to show how difficult it is to define Irishness in hard terms

It is easy to knock what has been done, but whatever is to replace it needs definition that is broadly agreed.

My other point was that to examine every casualty in detail to see if it meets the criteria is very labour intensive. 50 man years of work to look at 50,000 casualties. So my feeling is that you will end up by saying that it is too difficult/expensive to do better! You are just not going to be able to look at the "Irishness" of that number of men. This is why researchers to date have used broad brush to define it

[KGB]

Define Irish? Well the Foreign Ministry in Dublin just sent me a nice tweet that said they were working on including and updating data on the afore mentioned site. US troops? My maternal Great Uncle emigrated, enlisted and was killed. Outside of "the pale" look at the names, a lot of folks would say that Private Shatwell (who served with my Grandfather) did not have an Irish name. That said the industrial cities of Britain had thousands of Murphys Kellys and O'Sullivans.

[centurion]

For once I find myself wholly in agreement with Centurion

Shocked = I've just had to have a lie down

The problem in part is that between the Act of Union and the coming into existence of the Free State there really wasn't a definition of Irish nationality only of British. People knew if they were Irish (or English, Welsh, Scots, Cornish etc) but if they had a passport it said British. Contrary to what a previous poster has said it was very much what people considered themselves to be that counted. My Grandfather who served in that " Forgotten Battalion in a Forgotten Regiment" considered himself to be a Briton who was Irish and proud of it as did his brother in law (my Great Uncle) who fought and died with the West Kents. One lived in Sligo but enlisted in Dublin and the other lived in London and joined the Territorial Force before the war started. There would be many men around the Empire who considered themselves Irish who were actually born in Singapore, Delhi, Melbourne, Toronto, Auckland, Cape Town, Khartoum etc etc Some might be the sons of Irishmen serving in the regular army. Apart from possibly an Irish name (and not always that) there would be nothing other than the fact that they, their family and friends knew that they were Irish to show that they were. Conversely there will have been men in England with Irish names who knew that they were English (or Scots or Welsh etc) and not Irish. The CWGC definition for Commemoration of serving with a Commonwealth force may sometimes leave a few out in the cold but it is workable. Before starting what looks increasingly like a somewhat hare brained scheme it would have been wise to do some thought and research on establishing some workable criteria on who should be on the Irish lists.

[hen190782]

Isadore

So basically the people behind this digitisation are now expecting other people to do the research that they should have done.

If people do provide corrected information, I do hope that the corrections will be applied quicker than Censi corrections submitted to the National Archives Ireland!!!

Nigel

[hen190782]

This is the other letter in the Irish Times:

Sir, – David Power (January 14th) mentions the question of non-Irish men and women serving in Irish regiments in the first World War. I wonder if I can mention the other side of the coin, and that is the question of Irishmen and women serving in non-Irish forces?

My father and his brother (my uncle) grew up in Rathmullen, Co Donegal, the sons of the then Church of Ireland Rector, Rev William Battersby Lloyd of Co Roscommon. They both emigrated to Canada as teenagers, and later enlisted with Canadian Regiments. My uncle was killed near Vimy Ridge in February 1917. I am not sure how far the digitisation of Ireland’s Memorial Records reflects this. There must be many others in a similar position.

Thanks to Paddy Harte, one time TD in Donegal, my uncle’s name is recorded in a memorial book in that part of the world, and I hope Mr Harte’s good work will be reflected in the latest digitisation.

My father went on to serve in the Home Guard during the second World War. At least 100,000 of his fellow countrymen and women served (and many died) in non-Irish forces in the cause of the freedoms of the governments and people of our two islands. But that’s another story.

[Guest]

Not sure if this has been posted but should be of interest? The Irish Times

Mike

[KGB]

Not sure if this has been posted but should be of interest? The Irish Times

Mike

Many Irish soldiers went on in 1919 to join the Old IRA. It gave Collins a massive headache. On the one hand a small army of men who had 4 years fighting done weighed against how easy it would be for any spy to walk up to a Flying Column and ask to join.

[depaor01]

Not sure if this has been posted but should be of interest? The Irish Times

Mike

You can be guaranteed that this piece of work will be flawless. I'm getting more convinced as time passes that WWI commemoration in this 'ere Green Isle of ours is still reluctant at best - despite regular media guff to the contrary.

Dave

[Murrough]

You can be guaranteed that this piece of work will be flawless. I'm getting more convinced as time passes that WWI commemoration in this 'ere Green Isle of ours is still reluctant at best - despite regular media guff to the contrary.

Dave

Dave, there are some other events planned as well, from the Times-

"War cross

A new cross, commissioned by the Glasnevin Trust and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, will be unveiled at a service at the Irish National War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge on August 4th, the 100th anniversary of the day Britain declared war on Germany.

There will also be an Irish presence in Mons, Belgium where the first major battle of the first World War on the western front will be marked.

The passage of the final Home Rule Bill in July 1914 and the famous Woodenbridge speech given by John Redmond, which urged Irish volunteers to sign up to fight for the British army, will also be examined in detail.

Mr Deenihan said all first World War commemorations would be co-ordinated with the Northern Assembly."

Not a lot I know,but we've come a long way in 20 years.

The IWMR were known to have been inaccurate 30-40 years ago and we should thank the likes of Museumtom on this forum for the time and effort he has put in to make a more accurate record of the casualties, I think he has done c.10 counties virtually single handed.Others in other counties are also to be commended for their efforts.

The first fact to be ascertained should be the total number of casualties who were born on the island of Ireland, when this is done we can look at other criteria for inclusion in an updated record.

Regards,

M.

[depaor01]

Thanks for that info Murrough.

All news to me, and it looks great. However I have some personal insight into the governmental lack of interest. I will hopefully be eating my words this time next year and will be happy to do so.

Dave.

[museumtom]

Why thank you Murrogh!, 15 counties completed (can anyone ever say that?). Now working on Dublin. At the moment it stands at 8,110. The key is cross referencing. Inclusion of information from local newspapers is vital, among other things that's where you will find the most officers. So far 31 newspapers have been processed in this way. Some of them became obsolete soon after the war and others changed names as they evolved into their present form. One thing about these newspapers is the quality of the articles they contained. For some reason it seems that censorship was not as stringent here in the Republic and other places. Letters from the front, items on military information, tactics, weapons, etc were the norm until April 1916 when these items all but stopped.The wealth of letters from the front, from lads who survived are great, unusable in my hunt for casualties, but, this year these articles among others, sorted by year, will be published beginning with 1914.

Sorry for going on a ramble, but that's they way you get when you are a doddery ould codger.

Cheers.

Tom.

[depaor01]

Hi Museumtom,

Could you clear your inbox? would like to pm .

Ta,

Dave

[museumtom]

Done.