Donegal: the Irish Revolution, 1912–23. By Pauric Travers. Pp 183. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 2022. € 24.95.

Abstract

Roberts available at the Dublin City Library and Archives). In July 1916, Drury contracted malaria. For an entire year, he was away from his battalion, returning to Salonika in July 1917, shortly before his unit was ordered to move to Egypt and Palestine (chapter 7). British strategies sought to capture Jerusalem, split the Ottoman Empire and expand Britain’s control over the Middle East. Though they did not participate in the capture of Jerusalem, the 6 Royal Dublin Fusiliers spent four months in the region and marvelled at the landscape of exceptional beauty. Only in December 1917 did they get involved in the defence the Holy City from a Turkish counter-attack (chapter 8), before being sent to France in September 1918 (chapter 9). Quite surprisingly, the armistice (chapter 10) did not meet with any degree of enthusiasm; Drury and his men would have liked nothing more than to ‘get the dirty hounds with the bayonet’ (p. 289). Here, it is worth wondering if battalions less engaged in combat held on to a strong desire to keep fighting. Did little exposure to violence suffice to explain that enthusiasm? Was revenge powerful enough to breed such feeling? Or were these few lines added several years after the conflict had ended? Drury’s loyalty unconditionally lay with the British Empire, as did that of many serving Irishmen at the time. In pondering the motivations of men for enlisting, Drury opined that ‘shame must have been the deciding factor: how could one stay behind when every letter, every article in the papers, every dispatch, called urgently for help for ourmen in France, apparently with their backs to the wall’ (p. 27). This interpretation of volunteering is intriguing; it is not something academics have written about and something which deserves fuller attention. With this additional volume, Grayson not only gives a voice to a Protestant Irishman, but he also tells the academic world, and the public at large, about the sacrifice of all the Irish soldiers and officers who volunteered during the First World War. Grayson’s research at large is of vital importance, even so today. Recently, the Republic of Ireland has participated in centenary commemorations and honoured the memory of all the Irish who had fallen during the conflict. But a resurgence of vivid resentment coupled with contemporary politics has tarnished the all-inclusive spirit advocated by PresidentMichael D. Higgins. On 4 November 2022, the headquarters of the Royal British Legion in Dublin was vandalised by a selfproclaimed group of anti-imperialists. Drury would have no doubt have voiced his disgust at such action, seeing in this act some memorial terrorism spurred by hatred and ignorance. The making of any collective national memory will always be compounded by historical distortions and fabricated myths. And even today, it is much easier to assert that a handful of badly organised rebels liberated the country rather than recognising that 210,000 Irishmen risked their lives for the defence of the British Empire and for Ireland.