How many Irish casualties were there in World War 1?

Answer 1

There is no exact agreement by all expert on the total number of Irish soldiers who served in the British Army and Navy in the First World War. The definition of 'Irish' is a problem; should it include only those 'born in Ireland' (of whom nearly as many were now living in England as in Ireland) or all those of Irish descent wherever they lived but who would qualify as Irish for joining Irish regiments etc. According to the Irish Government site [http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/eng/index.asp?docID=2517] Professor Keith Jeffery gives a figure of 210,000 Irish who served in WW1.

Given that there were about 20,000 Irish in the armed services at the outbreak of the war plus 30,000 front line reservists, then as about 140,000 enlisted in Ireland during the war, th figure of over 200,000 is certainly reasonable. Note that while later generations of Ulster Irish might have preferred to describe themselves as British, it was common and accepted practise for all of them at this time to denote themselves as Irish. There is a consensus that at least 35,000 Irish soldiers and sailors died though the figure on the National War Memorial is 49,400. The difference may be accounted for by several factors including non-Irish members of Irish regiments, but all would accept that probably more than 50,000 died and casualties would be at least the same again.

This then suggests that the attrition rates experienced by the Irish was high. In part this is because of military tradition in which Irish (and Scots) were proud of their role in the vanguard of military battles - a tradition dating from the several 100,000 (possibly half a million over 3 centuries) who served as elite regiments in the French, Austrian and other armies in the 17-18 centuries and too in the wars of the British Empire. Finally, it may be noted that the British dead in WWI only matched the Irish dead from disease and famine in 1945-59 (Great Irish Famine).

These deaths were however, matched again by deaths in 1919 due to Spanish influenza (a form of chicken bird-flu) which had its origins in the congregating of 1918 British military hospitals towards the end of the war behind the front line in Northern France. Over half a million famine deaths from disease in Ireland in the mid-1840s had a similar origin in that they were caused by epidemics made worse by congregating of the poor in famine-struck Ireland. The misnamed 'Spanish Influenza' in 1918-20 killed more people (mainly civilians) than the whole of military deaths in WW1.

It is instructive to consider that the Irish famine deaths were proportionately more than twice as devastating as the WWI military losses of Great Britain. But. Irish military deaths in WWI though high as percentages of all Irish recruits represented only half of British military losses in relative proportion to the respective total populations of Ireland and Great Britain. Note also that Irish deaths in WWI were probably roughly double Irish military deaths in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and more than 10 times Irish deaths in the Indian Mutiny and Boer Wars.

Robert McDowell ( a Belfastian)

Answer 2

Approx 210,000 Irishmen served in the British forces and approx 35,000 died

Answer 3

38,554 Irish people from Ireland (not Northern Ireland) chose to join the Brits in the war against Hitler. They served in the various Royal forces, mostly Army.

Answer 4

Four pikeys and a shoe.

Answer 5

5