Paul Taylor's Heroes or Traitors? is another book in the wonderful Reappraisals in Irish History series, which also includes Emily Mark-Fitzgerald's Commemorating the Irish Famine: Memory and the Monument (2013). Taylor's book examines the experiences of Irish soldiers who fought with the British Army when they returned to Ireland after World War I until 1939. About 210,000 Irish men served in the British Army in World War I, of whom it is estimated 35,000 died. They served in fourteen Irish regiments; three Irish divisions (10th, 16th, and 36th); in emigrant units, such at the London Irish and Tyneside Irish; and in many English regiments. The 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and its subsequent violent suppression had a dramatic impact on Ireland during the war years. Many historians over the last thirty years have argued that the returning Irish soldiers in 1919 suffered intimidation and that some were killed due to their service. Thus, it has become commonplace to describe them as a marginalized group in 1920s and 1930s. This argument has played out in the popular media in Ireland and has shaped the related claim that former soldiers were killed due to their previous service during the Irish Wars (1919–23). Taylor contends that the reality was more “complex and multifaceted” (243), that this group of veterans was large and socially diverse, and that they had vastly different experiences after World War I.
An estimated 110,000 Irish soldiers returned after the war. Many joined the Irish Republican Army, while 50 percent of the new National Army during the Irish Civil War (1922–23) consisted of former service men. These new forms of military participation, Taylor suggests, allowed many to assimilate into the new society. He supports his argument by organizing the book into three parts. Part one, “Time of Conflict, 1919–23,” covers the War of Independence and Civil War, examining the types and frequency of violence experienced by former servicemen and comparing geographical variations through the island of Ireland. Part two, “Britain: Legacy of Obligation: 1919–39,” assesses the nature of the British government's support to the former servicemen in Ireland and compares it to what happened in England. Part three, “Ireland: State and Community: 1922–39,” closes the book by describing experiences of former servicemen in the new Irish Free State and asking to what extent these veterans were marginalized and unwelcome.
Taylor uses new archive sources to reinterpret this history, making the most of the Irish Military Archives collection, which is now online and useful for its perspective on the IRA. Meanwhile, he uses Irish Grants Committee files to represent the “voice of the victims” (252). Taking regard of these new sources, he argues that the intimidation of veterans occurred for other reasons than just war service and was geographically focused, and, moreover, that the British Government overall fulfilled its obligations to the Irish former servicemen. In relation to the new Irish Free State's interaction with former servicemen, the new Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann, established in 1927 a committee to investigate complaints of former servicemen and concluded that their concerns were “common to all members of society.” Similarly, a report in 1936 by the British Ministry for Pensions determined that there was no “discrimination against ex-servicemen.” Taylor concludes that the widely used term ex-servicemen suggests a homogeneity that did not exist in Ireland, as these men distributed through all classes and were part of the social fabric of their local communities.
Only a small number of Irish veterans joined ex-servicemen societies, and most shied away from the British Legion due to its imperial connotations. It is true that there were public clashes in relation to World War I remembrance ceremonies, held on November 11 each year to mark the end of the war. These ceremonies emphasized the links with Britain and attracted a media spotlight. He suggests that it was not previous services to the British government that divided Irish society in 1920s and 1930s, but rather the split in families and communities over the Irish Civil War (1922–23). Taylor feels it suited loyalists and republicans alike to portray former servicemen as marginalized group in the twentieth century, but in the end they were neither heroes nor traitors.
