Belgian Refugees, Prisoners-Of-War, Enemy Aliens and War Casualties

¿ .ö . I p National University of Ireland Maynooth THE IRISH HOME FRONT 1914-18 WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE TREATMENT OF BELGIAN REFUGEES, PRISONERS-OF-WAR, ENEMY ALIENS AND WAR CASUALTIES. by CLARE O’NEILL THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH Supervisor of Research: Dr Filipe Meneses October 2006 Contents Contents i Acknowledgements iii Abbreviations iv Introduction 1 Memory and remembrance 7 Wartime mobilisation 16 Purpose of the thesis and methodology 18 Chapter 1 - Ireland at the outbreak of war 24 Ireland within the Union 24 Home Rule 25 An Irish refugees support committee 30 Europe erupts 32 Local Government Board 35 Legislating for aliens 37 Laws concerning war wounded and prisoners of war 46 Chapter 2 - Belgian Refugees 52 The formation of the Belgian Refugees Committee in London 54 Belgian Refugees Committee in Ireland 57 The role of the Local Government Board 67 Michel Schepers - The director of Dunshaughlin colony 72 Education and the churches’ response 74 Belgian customs 79 Taking advantage of refugees 80 Recruitment 81 Reasons for supporting Belgian refugees 82 Refugees as Propaganda 83 Chapter 3 Captivity - ‘a side-show story’ 87 Self mobilisation - humanitarian support for aliens 91 Legislation 92 Detention of enemy aliens 94 Military prisoners 103 Departure from Templemore 106 Treatment of aliens 107 Self-interest 109 Case study 1 - Harry Premperl 110 Case Study 2 - Frederick Vogelsang 111 Chapter 4 - War Wounded 115 Transporting the wounded 132 Funding volunteer work 135 Recognising voluntary service 140 After the war 142 i Chapter 5 - Was the Irish Home Front unique? 146 Framing the comparison 146 Britain and Ireland 147 Belgian refugees in the Netherlands and France 150 American Mobilisation 161 The veil of forgetfulness and civilian mobilisation 165 Parallels with Bohemia 166 The role of schools and colleges 169 A common experience of forgetting 173 Chapter 6 - Conclusion 175 Irish support for the war 176 Decline in support for the war 179 Motivations for supporting the war effort 181 A mobilisation of care 182 Britain and Ireland j oined in civilian mobilisation 184 Reconciliation through common sacrifice 187 Appendices 193 Bibliography 209 Primary Sources 209 Secondary Sources 218 ii Acknowledgements This thesis was made possible by the contributions of a large number of people and institutions. Firstly, I wish to thank the Department of History, NUI. Maynooth and in particular Professor R.V. Comerford for his continuous support during my time as an undergraduate and postgraduate, and for providing me with the opportunity to carry out this research. Dr Filipe Meneses, my supervisor, has always been supportive, motivating and understanding. I owe him a special thanks. The staff at a wide range of institutions have been vital to my work. I thank the staff of the following organisations: National Library of Ireland, National Archives of Ireland, Royal Irish Automobile Club, Society of Friends archive, St John Ambulance Brigade, Alexandra College, Templemore College, Belvedere College, Dublin Diocesan archive, Military archive, UCD archive, TCD archive, Irish National Teachers Organisation, Dublin YMCA, Kildare County archive, Meath County library, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Little Sisters of the Poor, Archiv Carmel (Malines, Belgium), National Archives (Kew), Belgian Embassy (Dublin). A number of individuals have contributed personally from their life experience or their own research. I thank them: Roisin and Karl Vogelsang, Pat Maguire, Professor Jim Swindall, O.B.E., Councillor Jim O’Shea, Sergeant John Reynolds, Oliver Murphy, Raf Van Laere. In particular, I thank Jim O’Shea of the National Library of Ireland for unfailing and untiring efforts on my behalf. To those who set me on this path I owe a particular debt. Richard Keane, Professor Jean McNiff, Dr. Peadar Slattery, the late Nicholas Moran, all share in this. Special thanks go to my parents, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephew, brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and Ray, the wind beneath my wings. Thank you so much! Abbreviations BRCS British Red Cross Society CSORP Chief Secretary’s Office, Registered Papers DMP Dublin Metropolitan Police DU Dublin University DUOTC Dublin University Officer Training Corps IAC Irish Automobile Club IFS Irish Free State INV Irish National Volunteers NAI National Archives of Ireland NLI National Library of Ireland OTC Officer Training Corps PRO National Archives formerly Public Record Office (United Kingdom). RAMC Royal Army Medical Corps RCSI Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland RIAC Royal Irish Automobile Club RIC Royal Irish Constabulary RUI Royal Univeristy of Ireland SJAB St John Ambulance Brigade TCD Trinity College Dublin UCD University College Dublin UVF Ulster Volunteer Force VAD Voluntary aid detachment WNHA Women’s National Health Association Introduction The historiography of the first two decades of the twentieth century in Ireland has, for the most part, focussed on the national question. In 1967, F.X. Martin drew attention to the historographical gap caused by the omission of accounts of Ireland’s First World War experience. He referred to the omission as Ireland’s ‘ “great oblivion”, an example of national amnesia’. Martin emphasised the extent of the amnesia by reference to the numbers who, at the time, supported the war effort and the numbers of those involved in the Easter Rising: ‘For every Irishman with MacNeill there were sixteen with the British; over 80% of the people were in sympathy with England’s war effort.’ He reminded his readers that it was difficult to find Irish men and women who would acknowledge that their parents had supported Britain in the war, while a witticism from the 1920s suggested that if all who claimed to have been in the GPO in 1916 had really been there then the GPO would have needed to be four times its size.1 The reappraisal of Irish history, started by Martin, continued through the 1980s and 1990s, when attention was redirected to Ireland’s military participation in the war. An attempt to address the omission of Irish involvement in the conflict in accounts of the history of Ireland was clearly made by Myles Dungan: U p to half a million Irishmen and wo m e n participated in the Great War. Until very recently only the sacrifices ma d e by roughly one third of their number, the me n of Ulster, have been remembered with any pride or regret, while the participation of over 300,000 m e n and w o m e n from the Irish nationalist tradition has been virtually written out of the history of m o d e m Ireland.2 Addressing the amnesia, D.G. Boyce drew on Tom Kettle’s deep insight in July 1916 on his return to the war. Kettle had suggested in relation to the leaders of the Rising that ‘these men will go down in history as heroes and martyrs, and I will go down - if I go down at all - as a bloody British officer’. Boyce suggests that the national amnesia became a ‘sort of field dressing’ which saw ex-servicemen and their cause ‘sink into oblivion’ as the war became to be seen ‘as the wrong war, fought in the wrong place against the wrong enemy’.3 However, national amnesia, like other field dressings, only 1 F.X. Martin, ‘1916 - myth, fact and mystery’ in Studia Hibernia, no. 7, 1967, p. 68. 2 Myles Dungan, Irish Voices from the Great War (Dublin, 1995), frontispiece. 3 D.G. Boyce, ‘Nationalism, unionism and the First World War’ in Adrian Gregory and Senia Paseta (eds), Ireland and the Great War (Manchester, 2002), p. 201. 1 became effective over time and so the participation in the war was remembered in various ways in the years immediately following the war. Armistice Day was celebrated between 1919 and 1931 throughout Ireland and divisional histories, diaries and rolls of honour were written and published in the years following the war.4 Significantly, in recent years publications have taken a different approach. Dungan’s approach is to address the issue of participation in the war largely setting out to tell the stories of men of the Irish volunteer divisions which had not previously been told. Ireland’s contribution was largely made up of the 10th (Irish) Division, which fought mainly in the Balkans, and the 16th (Irish) and 36lh (Ulster) Divisions, which saw action on the Western front. Dungan points out that while the story of the Ulster division has been told well and often, the voices of those who served in the 10th and 16th divisions have remained largely unheard. The 16th Division was largely made up of southern Catholics and is not commemorated by a monument anywhere in Ireland apart from a stained glass window in the City of Derry Guildhall. Paradoxically, the guildhall is traditionally seen as a bastion of Protestantism.5 Dungan is not alone in telling the stories of these men. Several works have examined the roles of the various Irish units in the war. These include Stanley’s account of the 10th Division6, Orr’s accounts of the 10th Division7 and the 36th Division8, and Denman’s attempt to capture the human reality of the 16th Division9. Bowman takes a different approach by examining issues relating to discipline and morale among Irish regiments that differentiated them from English, Welsh and Scottish regiments.10 Tom Johnstone offers a comprehensive account of the participation by Irish regiments.11 Quinn follows one occupational group, barristers, and 4 Bryan Cooper, The tenth (Irish) division in Gallipoli (London, 1918); Felix Lavery, Irish heroes in the war (London, 1917); A.R. Burrows, 1st Battalion the Faugh-a- Ballaghs in the Great War (Aldershot, 1926); Rudyard Kipling, The Irish Guards (London, 1923); G.A.

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