Irish Military Elites, Nation and Empire, 1870–1925

Download or read book Irish Military Elites, Nation and Empire, 1870–1925 written by Loughlin Sweeney and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-08-05 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a social history of Irish officers in the British army in the final half-century of Crown rule in Ireland. Drawing on the accounts of hundreds of officers, it charts the role of military elites in Irish society, and the building tensions between their dual identities as imperial officers and Irishmen, through land agitation, the home rule struggle, the First World War, the War of Independence, and the partition of Ireland. What emerges is an account of the deeply interwoven connections between Ireland and the British army, casting officers as social elites who played a pivotal role in Irish society, and examining the curious continuities of this connection even when officers’ moral authority was shattered by war, revolution, independence, and a divided nation.