Fin Keegan

In 1923 the twenty-six counties of southern Ireland gained independence from Britain. The victory was preceded by an armed insurrection (the 1916 Easter Rising), a guerrilla style War of Independence (1919-1921) and the negotiation of a Treaty with the British Government (1922). Disagreement over this settlement led to a Civil War (1922-1923). The division of this latter conflict persists in Irish social and political spheres to this day; the violence of those years is directly linked to the recent Troubles in Northern Ireland.

No Irish family in Ireland is not in some way connected to these events or untouched by their complexities. My own paternal great-grandfather fought in the Easter Rising and the War of Independence and was interned by the authorities where he continued his protest by going on hunger-strike. Bernard Reid, , who grew up in the same house I did, was also a Nationalist, a founding member of the 1913 Irish Volunteers, an armed body dedicated to protecting the Irish self-determination. All subsequent Irish armed organizations, from the legitimate armed forces of the Republic of Ireland itself to Republican terrorists, trace their origins back to these Volunteers. Their aim was to protect the implementation of “Home Rule”, parliamentary legislation then nearing enactment which would mean Ireland’s devolution (though not complete independence) from Britain.

After several skirmishes with Crown forces, events in Ireland were overtaken by those in Europe. War was declared and Home Rule for Ireland shelved. An understanding was reached between Moderate Nationalists and the British government that a common front against Germany for the duration of the war would ensure Irish devolution once the conflict (then, of course, envisaged as a matter of only a few months) had been concluded. At this point the Volunteers split and the “Home Rulers” joined the British Army. It is said some 100,000 Catholic Irishmen (many guided less by political allegiance than by sheer economic necessity) fought in British uniform on the continent. Irish Volunteers who chose to stay at home - among them Padraig Pearse, Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins - went on to become the insurrectionists of 1916, triggering a violent endgame which culminated in Independance.

Meanwhile my cousin was to die a British Soldier on the Western Front, a matter of weeks after the Easter Rising in Dublin.

The political reasons for the extraordinary circumstances of Bernard Reid’s death are complex. It was understood that Irish soldiers willing to fight Germany would ensure devolution for their country once the wretched business was concluded. However Bernard Reid went to the Front mainly to defend France. Though a French speaker his application to the French Foreign Legion was postponed (as a British subject, French authorities argued, he could volunteer for the British forces.)