Memorial Records fiasco - thoughts please

[milmor_1]

Hi Guys,

Late to this one, so apologies if I go over something that has already been added.

As we all know the Irish Records are incomplete and this is also stated in the introduction to the books.

Regarding claiming and recording soldiers etc as "Irish" it is interesting to note that the Scottish National War Memorial Roll of Honour shows Irish born soldiers on the roll if they were residing in Scotland at the time of their enlistment.

There are many cases of duplications but as has been said there are many NOT recorded, from The Royal Navy, RFC/RAF, AIF, NZEF etc.

Take an example of the crew of H.M.S. Goliath which was sunk off Gallipoli on 13 May 1915.

Nine men from the village of Coonagh Co. Limerick died but NOT one of them is recorded, a further sixty (approx) Irish born sailors are not listed in the records either.

Robert and John Jones (brothers from Belfast) also died on the Goliath, Robert is recorded in the Books but John is NOT.

Personally I cannot comphrehend the concept of paying for people to travel to Belgium to conduct this research when, the CD is available, Copies of the books are available in the National Library in Dublin and even in the Islandbridge Gardens.

Notwithstanding the above points re Belgium, I believe this is a worthwhile exercise, and should be conducted to honour those who served and died. This will put their service in context with the period of the time.

We should remember if there are debates over the Irishness or Britishness of the people of this island at the time of the Great War that the correct title for the U.K. was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and IRELAND" so north or South they were Irish and by association British. Many who live in Northern Ireland today actually class themselves as "Northern Irish" remember United Kingdom of Great Britain and NORTHERN IRELAND".

The upsurge in interest across this island by the families of those who served to find out where their ancestors served and/or died is reason enough to attempt identify as many of the casualties as is humanly possible.

If we do identify new casualties we are filling in part of our lost history. Thats why this project is important.

(Apologies if the last part sounded like a rant).

[BullerTurner]

Are you saying Dev wasn't American? Golly this makes his case not to be executed in 1916 look a bit thin? Do the authorities know?

[Wexflyer]

Some observations:

- An intractable problem remains so no matter how much time or effort is devoted to solving it.

- In general, issues are very well stated and argued here, but at the same time the key points have been known for decades (see first point, abut intractability).

- I think what comes across at times as a desire to have a larger number of Irish casualties is perverse. Surely as low a number as possible is the desirable state? I should say immediately that I fully recognize that the true underlying intention is to make sure that "credit" (if that is the right term) is correctly paid, but nonetheless, I think some comments express a desire to **want** the number to be higher.

- One hundred years on, why does the labeling of the casualties via nationality still rage as such a contentious issue. Does it matter anymore? Surely it would be better to let the controversies over proportions of who did/did not serve or die rest, as all those who participated have now gone to their rest?

Finally, I write this as someone who is Irish, yet would not be counted as such under some, but not all of the schemes employed to (vainly in my humble opinion ) try and assign nationality, when the original records simply do not address that issue.

[museumtom]

Since 2006 a project has been working on establishing the 26 county casualties. Support was sought from the powers that be. All requests were ignored. Had support been given the project would have been completed five years ago. The 6 northern counties are not included in this as they are too far away. Criteria for inclusion-born in the 26 counties, lived in the 26 counties, next-of-kin from, or in, the 26 counties and all WW1 burials in the 26 counties. When the 26 counties are complete they will be reviewed and duplicates removed (a person can be listed in more than one county), also removed will be civilian casualties, mainly of ship sinking’s, munition workers, etc. Part of this review will also revisit the U.S. and Naval casualties and those missed will then be added.

Modern county casualty books were noted but not used as a reference as the authors opinions, and occasional mistakes would detract from the validity of the project.

25 of these counties are now completed, and they are;-

Carlow-569.

Cavan-686.

Clare-695.

Cork-4540.

Donegal-1238.

Dublin-8607.

Galway-1171.

Kerry-765.

Kildare-1044.

Kilkenny-796.

King’s County/Offaly-663.

Leitrim-337.

Limerick-1304.

Longford-339.

Louth-826.

Mayo-1130.

Meath-580.

Monaghan-521.

Queen’s County/Laois-575.

Roscommon-542.

Tipperary-1521.

Waterford-1172.

Westmeath-737.

Wexford-914.

Wicklow-775.

[Murrough]

Some observations:

- An intractable problem remains so no matter how much time or effort is devoted to solving it.

- In general, issues are very well stated and argued here, but at the same time the key points have been known for decades (see first point, abut intractability).

- I think what comes across at times as a desire to have a larger number of Irish casualties is perverse. Surely as low a number as possible is the desirable state? I should say immediately that I fully recognize that the true underlying intention is to make sure that "credit" (if that is the right term) is correctly paid, but nonetheless, I think some comments express a desire to **want** the number to be higher.

- One hundred years on, why does the labeling of the casualties via nationality still rage as such a contentious issue. Does it matter anymore? Surely it would be better to let the controversies over proportions of who did/did not serve or die rest, as all those who participated have now gone to their rest?

Finally, I write this as someone who is Irish, yet would not be counted as such under some, but not all of the schemes employed to (vainly in my humble opinion ) try and assign nationality, when the original records simply do not address that issue.

People just want clarity and a reasonable attempt to establish the numbers of casualties, no ghoulishness here.Many recent attempts to establish numbers has uncovered many casualties who would have otherwise been forgotten.A good outcome IMO, and a reason to research the matter further.