NEWRY AND MOURNE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN EDUCATION RESOURCE Front cover photograph: Sergeant Michael O’Leary, of the Irish Guards, with members of 1st Kilmorey Scout Group at a recruiting rally in Warrenpoint, 7th July 1915 (Courtesy of William McAlpine) ABOUT THIS EDUCATION RESOURCE This resource, aimed at secondary school teachers and pupils, contains information focused on the Newry and Mourne area during the First World War and the preceding Home Rule crisis. It covers a variety of topics and for each topic there is a general introduction and then a series of educational tasks. The activities will assist pupils to develop a range of historical and critical thinking skills. Produced as part of a Heritage Lottery funded project examining the local impacts of the First World War on the Newry and Mourne area, it is hoped that this resource will be of value to schools in the district who study this period of history. CONTENTS PAGE Section 1: Politics before the War 3 Section 2: Recruitment 15 Section 3: Service and Theatres of War 25 Section 4: The Home Front 31 Section 5: Women in Wartime 43 Section 6: Children in Wartime 57 Section 7: Communication between the Fronts 65 Section 8: Political Developments during the War 69 Section 9: Aftermath 79 Section 10: Appendices 85 Appendix 1: Egg Template 85 Appendix 2: Fundraising Flag Template 86 Appendix 3: Timeline, 1912–1919 87 Appendix 4: Newry and Mourne Museum Education Service 90 NEWRY AND MOURNE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN EDUCATION RESOURCE | 1 2 | NEWRY AND MOURNE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN EDUCATION RESOURCE SECTION 1: POLITICS BEFORE THE WAR THE HOME RULE CRISIS, 1912–1914 On the eve of the First World War, it looked like a civil war was going to break out in Ireland. Nationalists and Unionists were divided over the issue of Home Rule which sought to re-establish a Parliament in Dublin. Propaganda, including postcards featuring political cartoons, was produced by both sides. Unionists feared the religious and economic consequences of Home Rule because they knew that a self-governing Ireland was bound to be dominated by Catholics. On ‘Ulster Day’ (28th September 1912), Unionists attended services in Protestant churches before signing the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant or Women’s Declaration, to show their opposition to Home Rule. In south Armagh 4,941 individuals signed the documents, while in south Down 13,299 signed. In 1913 both sides went a step further and formed their own private army. The Unionists established the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in January 1913 and the Nationalists reacted by forming the Irish Volunteers Poster advertising a Home Rule meeting in Newry, 1911 (© in November 1913. While the UVF was set up almost Armagh County Museum Collection) immediately in Newry and Mourne it was not until Postcard produced by Unionists in 1912 as part of the Anti-Home Rule campaign. The image on the postcard is modelled on the pre-Raphaelite P. H. Calderon’s painting of the biblical figure, Ruth (Ulster), leaving her adopted mother, Naomi (England). The figure representing Scotland holds a scroll entitled ‘Act of Union’ (Newry and Mourne Museum Collection) NEWRY AND MOURNE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN EDUCATION RESOURCE | 3 May 1914 that the Irish Volunteers began to appear in the district. By July 1914 County Armagh had 7,600 men in the Ulster Volunteer Force and 5,400 men in the Irish Volunteers. By early 1914, around 3,000 women from across Ulster had enlisted in the UVF and served as nurses, typists and postal workers, as well as in the signalling section. Nationalist women joined the constitutional Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), established in 1910, and Cumann na mBan, set up in April 1914, acted as a female wing to the Irish Volunteers. The UVF, in April 1914, successfully smuggled into Larne, Bangor and Donaghadee, arms purchased in Germany and these were distributed throughout Ulster. The Irish Volunteers carried out a similar gun-running at Howth, near Dublin, in July 1914. WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE Suffrage, the right for women to vote in parliamentary Members of the South Down UVF marching through Kilkeel (Courtesy of PRONI, D2638/D/49/145) elections, gained momentum in the years prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The first Irish suffrage society was formed in Belfast in the early 1870s by Isabella Tod. Initially, peaceful and constitutional methods were its secretary. Also notable in the suffrage campaign was used but by the early twentieth century some of the Dr Elizabeth Gould Bell. Dr Bell was born at Springhill women involved began to use more assertive and extreme House, Altnaveigh, near Newry, in 1862. She was the first tactics, including arson, window-breaking and bombing. female medical graduate in Ireland, graduating from the Much of the militant activity in Ulster tended to be Royal University of Ireland in 1893. After qualifying, she restricted to Belfast and its immediate hinterland but in set up a medical practice in Belfast and was a member of February 1913 an attack was carried out on the letterbox at both the Irish Women’s Suffrage Society and the Women’s Newtownhamilton Post Office in County Armagh. Social and Political Union, which had been set up in Manchester in 1903 by the Pankhursts. In 1911 Dr Bell A suffrage society was established in Newry in December travelled to London and was arrested and imprisoned 1911 and by May 1913 it had 48 members. By the same for breaking windows during a suffrage demonstration. date Warrenpoint Suffrage Society, which predated the Thirteen women were arrested for militancy in Ulster one in Newry, had 58 members. Both the Newry and between March and August 1914. Dr Bell worked as Warrenpoint societies were affiliated to the non-militant a doctor for the suffragettes who were imprisoned in Irish Women’s Suffrage Federation (IWSF). In 1912 the Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast. IWSF established a Northern Committee to co-ordinate the activities of its northern societies and Dora Mellone, The First World War interrupted and then brought great a leading suffragist in Warrenpoint, was appointed as changes to both Home Rule and women’s suffrage. 4 | NEWRY AND MOURNE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN EDUCATION RESOURCE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES THE ULSTER COVENANT AND WOMEN’S DECLARATION 1. Look at the text of the Covenant and answer the following questions: Text of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant (Newry and Mourne Museum Collection) • Identify four reasons why Unionists did not want Home Rule? • What action did the Unionists pledge to take if Home Rule was forced on Ireland? 2. The following is the text of the Women’s Declaration: We, whose names are underwritten, women of Ulster, and loyal subjects of our gracious King, being firmly persuaded that Home Rule would be disastrous to our Country, desire to associate ourselves with the men of Ulster in their uncompromising opposition to the Home Rule Bill now before Parliament, whereby it is proposed to drive Ulster out of her cherished place in the constitution of the United Kingdom, and to place her under the domination and control of a Parliament in Ireland. Praying that from this calamity God will save Ireland, we hereto subscribe our names. NEWRY AND MOURNE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN EDUCATION RESOURCE | 5 • How does the text of the Women’s Declaration differ from that of the Covenant signed by the men? Why do you think this might be? HOME RULE PROPAGANDA 3. This is an example of a postcard produced as propaganda during the Home Rule crisis. Home Rule postcard (Courtesy of David Elliott) • Study the postcard and identify three negative consequences for Newry if Home Rule is introduced. • What has the Town Hall become the headquarters for? • What is now taught at the Municipal Technical School? • What images are used to suggest the backwardness of the economy under a Home Rule parliament? • Do you think this postcard was designed to be pro-Home Rule or anti-Home Rule? 4. Use the Internet to see if you can find other political postcards or cartoons that were produced during the Home Rule crisis. 6 | NEWRY AND MOURNE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN EDUCATION RESOURCE THE VOLUNTEERS AND THE HOME RULE CRISIS 5. Look at the following images of the Ulster Volunteer Force and read the report of the Police Inspector for County Down. Images 7 & 8: Photographs of members of the 2nd Battalion South Down Regiment of the UVF at Mourne Park, near Kilkeel (Courtesy of PRONI, D2638/D/150, /153) Report of the Police Inspector for County Down on Unionist marches held in Kilkeel and Newry, during September 1913 (Courtesy of the National Archives, Kew, CO 904/91) On the 17th Sept. Sir E. Carson & other Unionist leaders, held meetings at Kilkeel & Newry. At the former, 950 volunteers were inspected in the presence of 4,000 people, and at the latter, 600 volunteers in the presence of 8,000 spectators. […] The quiet determined look of these […] partially drilled men, as they marched through the street and roads to the several meetings, made a great impression on even some advanced Nationalists who witnessed it. It was also a matter of much comment, the number of volunteers who wore war medals, and of men whose military bearing showed that they had been old soldiers or militiamen. The presence of large employers of labour in the ranks side by side with their employees was also a noticeable feature. • Do the men in the UVF depicted in the photographs look like a military force? Explain your answer.