Across the First World War, somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 Dubliners served in the British forces. Nearly 4,000 more, 90% of them women, saw voluntary service in the Red Cross. At least 6,568 of the military were killed, putting Dublin’s fatality rate at 16–19%, more than the UK-wide figure of 12%, perhaps one and a half times more. Part of that can be explained by the bulk of Dublin’s recruitment coming in the early years of the war, with there being no conscription to ensure a continuous flow of men over 1917–18. Meanwhile, whereas across the entire war 54.8% of the British army were infantry, 72.2% of Dubliners who served in the army were in the infantry.2 Both factors combined meant that Dubliners served in units which were more likely to face danger, and did so for longer, than the UK average.

In the week following Easter 1916, fewer than 2,000 Dubliners, serving with others from across Ireland, went into action in a fight that turned out to be against overwhelming odds. Many would die, many were taken prisoner, but most would survive. For much of the week, they saw little action, with the decisive onslaught coming towards its end. In years to come, some regarded them as heroes. They were the men of the 8th and 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers of the 16th (Irish) Division. The overwhelming odds were in the form of a German gas attack, and they were fighting at Hulluch in Belgium. Yet for most of Ireland, the true heroes of Easter 1916 were those who fought in a Rising against British rule and whose story could be told in the same way.

The dead of wars live on in the hearts and minds of those who knew them, and in the individual memorials which are constructed.2 But the complexities of memory arise in how societies as a whole, or in part, commemorate war. How could a state which had emerged from a war with the British appropriately commemorate the dead of a military against which it had fought?3 Part of the answer was in the collective acts of citizens of the new state who had been part of that army and had established rituals from the war’s end. They did not need state sanction to commemorate as they wished. The first opportunity for mass commemoration in Dublin came on 19 July 1919, ‘Peace Day’. This was a UK-wide event, though in Belfast it was marked a month later to avoid clashing with Orange events.4 The Irish Nationalist Veterans Association (which was active in Belfast into the 1920s but had little profile in Dublin after 1919) boycotted the event.

When the Dublin Fusiliers left Gallipoli, the focus of Dublin’s First World War shifted back to the Western Front. The 16th (Irish) Division, the military expression of Ireland’s endorsement of Parliamentary nationalism’s support for the war, had arrived there in December 1915. It would first see major action in the week following Easter 1916, at Hulluch in Belgium. Coincidentally, plans were being made in Dublin for momentous events which would take place in the same week, not only overshadowing the fighting at Hulluch but dramatically altering the course of Irish history.

Over Wednesday to Sunday of the Rising, Dubliners continued to be pitched against Dubliners as those in the British army played their part in quelling the Rising. Soldiers home on leave, who might have expected to be safe found themselves in mortal danger. Divided loyalties continued to surface. Some did not know how close they were to their enemies, with British soldiers unknowingly breakfasting alongside rebels.

Two British battles in the middle of 1916 might have been crucial to the outcome of war. Neither turned out to be, and neither looms large in Dublin’s narrative of the war, dominated as it is by other events of 1916. The first was the major naval encounter of the war: Jutland, in the North Sea, around a hundred miles from the Danish and Norwegian coasts. Since the start of the war the German naval command had known that they should not seek a decisive battle with the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet due to numbers. However, during spring 1915 they had sought to draw parts of it into a more evenly matched fight, offering as temptation submarine warfare against merchants and assaults on British coastal targets. Meanwhile, the British did not believe they could satisfactorily draw out the German fleet by air raids or mining, and therefore felt that their only chance of engaging the High Seas Fleet was to wait for it in a part of the North Sea which was not mined. Throughout the spring of 1915 only a series of minor encounters was fought.2

In the early months of the First World War, Dublin mobilised on a massive scale. Regular soldiers were already serving, while reservists were called to the colours. Volunteers joined many units of the British army, of which the best known were the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, even though most went elsewhere. Women (and some men) joined the British Red Cross Society. Voluntary enterprise was unleashed in support of men at the front. In Dublin, some of this was only possible because of the dominance of Parliamentary nationalism and its decision to back the war effort. When the United Kingdom formally went to war with Germany at 11 pm on 4 August 1914, in response to German threats to Belgian neutrality, mainstream nationalist politics might have been thrown into turmoil, threatening the unity in its ranks.

Ireland’s conflict of 1912–23 grew from such deep roots that those involved in it were fighting long before then and far from Ireland. Recognising that broad context is essential for understanding the motives which made Dubliners fight on different sides in 1912–23. Of course, one can trace the origins of the problems back to Norman times, the Reformation, 1798, or the Act of Union, to name just a few. But for some of those who were the active participants of 1912–23, the first chance to show what they would do in the name of ‘freedom’, or to become part of a British military tradition, came in southern Africa over a decade before.

Not least because of much cross-community work in Northern Ireland, the role of nationalists on the Somme during September 1916 is much better known than it once was.2 Dubliners played their part in particular through the 8th and 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, both battalions being members of the 16th (Irish) Division for which Parliamentary nationalists had been such active recruiters. However, Dubliners were also there in other battalions, including the 6th Connaught Rangers who were in the very first wave of the attack on Guillemont.

Allied attacks on the Somme which began in early September 1916 represented an increase in the French role in the battle, with six British and six French army corps on hand. However, the 3 September attack still saw the British dominate with eight divisions compared to four French.

During the War of Independence, former British solders took up some crucial roles in the IRA. They provided military expertise, insights into discipline, and the ability to pose as British officers. Those who remained in the army could also be an important source of weapons. However, when they returned to Dublin in 1919, the IRA they joined or supported had already been developed from the Irish Volunteers of 1916 by veterans of the Rising and new recruits.