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IRISH BATTALIONS: DOWNLOAD TEXT - MOBILIZATION - REGULAR ARMY

The Regular Army: Before the outbreak of the war, the proportion of Irishmen in the regular British Army was 9.1%, in line with the 9.7% Irish composition of the United Kingdom population. There were 20,000 regular Irish soldiers and approximately 30,000 Irish reservists. Between the 4th of August 1914 and the 11th of November 1918, i.e. the duration of the Great War, 140,500 Irishmen enlisted into the British Army. The immediate impact of the outbreak of the war was the mobilisation of some 58,000 Irish servicemen which included 20,000 regular soldiers, 18,000 reservists, 12,000 members of the special reserve, 5,000 naval ratings and several thousand officers. There were three recruiting centres in Dublin; Brunswick Street now Pearse Street (beside the Fire Station), Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) and Sutton. Recruits had to be between the ages of nineteen and forty five years of age, reservists and veterans could join up to the age of forty five years of age.

On the 4th of August 1914, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Reserve Battalions of the Dublin Fusiliers were mobilised. The 3rd Battalion was raised in Naas but was temporarily stationed at Aghada in Cork, the 4th Battalion was temporarily based at Templemore and at Mullingar. The 5th Battalion was based in the Royal (Collins) Barracks and later the Curragh. The main objective of these Reserve Battalions was to service and train the new volunteer recruits before their final placement in the new Service Battalions for service in France or Gallipoli. A key role of Special Reserve units was home defence. Right up until 1918 the British government was concerned that a German raiding force of 25,000 men would land somewhere in the UK.

It has been estimated that 210,00 Irishmen and women volunteered for military service during the four years of the war. Many of those who joined from Ulster were Catholic. Six hundred men from the Derry Irish National Volunteers were Catholic and made up part of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment. On the 19th of November 1914, five hundred Belfast Nationalists arrived by train at Amiens Street and formed part of the 6th Battalion of the Connaught Rangers. However, as a sign of things to come, they were kept waiting in the cold and rain and were not allowed to parade through the streets of Dublin en route to their barracks.