Disparity of Sacrifice

During the First World Warapproximately 210,000 Irish men and a much smaller, but significant,number of Irish women served in the Britisharmed forces. All were volunteers and a very high proportion were from Catholicand Nationalist communities. This book is the first comprehensive analysis ofIrish recruitment between 1914 and 1918 for the island of Ireland as awhole. It makes extensive use of previously neglected internal Britisharmy recruiting returns held at The National Archives, Kew, along with other valuablearchival and newspaper sources.There has been a tendency todiscount the importance of political factors in Irish recruitment, but thisbook demonstrates that recruitment campaigns organised under the auspices ofthe Irish National Volunteers and Ulster Volunteer Force were the earliest andsome of the most effective campaigns run throughout the war. The Britishgovernment conspicuously failed to create an effective recruiting organisationor to mobilise civic society in Ireland. While the military mobilisation whichoccurred between 1914 and 1918 was the largest in Irish history, British officialspersistently characterised it as inadequate, threatening to introduceconscription in 1918.This book also reflects on the disparity of sacrifice betweenNorth-East Ulster and the rest of Ireland, urban and rural Ireland, and Irelandand Great Britain.

Reviews'This is a tremendously important and academically rigorous book, which will come to be seen as a seminal text in the study of Ireland's First World War. It punctures a number of myths about recruitment, and also has significant relevance to wider studies of the Irish Revolution.'Professor Richard S. Grayson, Goldsmiths, University of London, 'The book offers a fertile breeding ground for further studies. It represents a valuable historiographical contribution through its engagement with nationalist and unionist responses to the war effort.'Emmanuel Destenay, Journal of British Studies, ‘This is a fine piece of scholarship. It significantly advances our understanding of recruiting in Ireland in 1914–18, and sheds light on the wider British war effort as well.' Gary Sheffield, English Historical Review

Timothy Bowman is Reader in modern British military history at the University of Kent. William Butler is the Head of Military Records, The National Archives, UK. Michael Wheatley is an independent researcher and writes on early twentieth-century Irish politics.