Talk: Irish Speaking Soldiers from East Belfast in the First World War

with Dr. Carmel Duggan

Drawing on a range of historical sources and contemporary research, this talk presents the findings of research into Irish speaking soldiers from east Belfast who fought in the First World War. The research was undertaken by a team from Cairde Turas (a sister organisation of Turas, the east Belfast Irish Organisation) and identified over seventy soldiers who had said they were Irish speakers.

They included Catholics and Protestants who lived in the working class communities of inner east Belfast. Before the war they were neighbours and many worked together in the local shipyards and factories. They also fought together in the trenches. Not all survived but those who did, returned to a very different Belfast than the one they had left.

Dr. Carmel Duggan, who co-ordinated the research will discuss this little explored aspect of east Belfast life at the outbreak of the war.