Research Project on Irish Soldiers in the First World War

Dr James McConnel has been awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Trust Fellowship for his project  "'The Fighting Race'? Contested Images of Irish Soldiers in the First World War". During the 2019/2020 academic year, he will research issues that shed light on both the history of the First World War and on Anglo-Irish relations. In August 1914, moderate Irish nationalists set aside their ambivalence towards the British Army and supported the Allies. While pro-war nationalists were depicted by republicans as "recruiting sergeants for John Bull", hoodwinking Irishmen into taking the "King's Shilling", modern scholars and politicians characterise their case as prefiguring the Good Friday Agreement's inclusivity. Dr McConnel's project challenges both interpretations. By using the concept of "strategic narratives" and newly available digital sources, it reconstructs the pro-war nationalist case as it was originally made to test the hypothesis that the culturally constructed figure of the heroic Irish soldier was central to this propaganda effort.