Clontarf's Protestant Communities in the First World War

                                             

 

 

Trinity College Dublin, History

Senior Sophister Dissertation 1995

 

Section Guide:

Introduction

Ante-Bellum Clontarf

The Reasons for the War

Recruitment

Civilian ‘War Work’

Economic Impact of the War

Social Impact of the War

Disturbances and Restrictions

Post-War Consequences

Conclusion

 

List of Tables:

Table 1: 1911 Census Information on Population

Table 2: 1891 Occupational Background of the Male Inhabitants of the Township of Clontarf

Table 3: Clontarf Protestant Male Enlistment and Casualties

Table 4 : Chronology of Recruitment Among Clontarf's Church of Ireland Males

Table 5: Branches of Service of the Clontarf Methodist and Church of Ireland Recruits

 

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank the many people who helped me in researching this dissertation. Their friendly assistance was indispensable. They are :

 

Dr. D. Fitzpatrick, my supervisor; Dermot Gilroy, Clontarf Golf Club; Enda McDermot, Clontarf Cricket Club; Clontarf Football Club; Joynt and Crawford, Solicitors; Rev. D A. Levistone Cooney, Clontarf Methodist Church; Rev. T Haskins, St. John the Baptist Church, Clontarf; Minister James Brogan, Clontarf Presbyterian Church; Dorris Hodgins; Hilary Fairman; the staff of the Freemasons's Archive, Dublin; and Geraldine Loftus of the TCD Computer Lab, for averting disaster.

 

 

 

 

Introduction

"We are now, at the moment of writing, going through one of the most anxious and trying times of the War. Many of our friends are in positions of danger, and our country as a whole is at a very serious crisis."^[1]

 

The danger referred to is the Ludendorff Offensive of March-July 1918. War memorials in the three Clontarf Protestant churches attests to the impact the war had in Clontarf. This dissertation examines the affects of the conflict on Clontarf, and the population's involvement in the war effort. Comparisons will be made with other parts of the then United Kingdom, and from this it will be seen if the influence of the war on Clontarf matched the Irish and/or UK experience. Whilst some topics can be discussed for all communities in Clontarf, the primary sources available mainly concern the Protestant communities, especially the Church of Ireland. The focus of this study is therefore on Protestant Clontarf.

 

Ante-Bellum Clontarf

Clontarf was a ‘chiefly residential’ suburb of the City of Dublin. It had a coastal location, backed by a large area of agricultural land. It had formerly been a separate township, but was annexed to the City in 1900 because it could not finance a proper drainage system. The Township of Clontarf had included the distinct areas of Clontarf, Marino and Fairview^[2]; Clontarf proper lay between the coast-end of the Malahide Road and Dollymount and corresponds to the modern-day area of that name.^[3]

 

Table 1: 1911 Census Information on Population^[4]

                                   

 

Its population was concentrated around the Malahide Road, Howth Road, St. Lawrence Road, Hollybrook Road, Castle Avenue, Vernon Avenue and Dollymount. The data on twenty two streets in Clontarf West 26/, examined to create Table One, revealed only one case each of streets inhabited almost exclusively by either Protestants or Catholics, out off twenty two streets. This indicates that housing was not segregated along religious lines, though Catholics were more inclined to live in the eastern part of Clontarf, where their local church stood.^[5]  Each Protestant community had distinct bodies organised on religious grounds, such as choral and childrens groups. But there was inter-community contact, in sports clubs, the local Voluntary Aid Detachment and the Clontarf Citizens Association, for instance. On a personal level, mixed marriages were not rare.

 

Clontarf was developed in the nineteenth century as a middle class suburb.^[6] The occupational background of the Protestant communities in 1911 is hard to establish as this information is not given separately for Clontarf in the census’s after 1900. Even before this, there is no treatment of the exact area under examination. The 1891 Census for the Township of Clontarf does reveal a high middle-class population.

 

Table 2: 1891 Occupational Background of the Male Inhabitants

of the Township of Clontarf^[7]

 

 

This information is two decades old for our purposes, taken when the population was 5,104. By 1911, the population of the same area had risen 175% to 8965. Even though the religious background of the total population did not change much, it is not known whether the middle class members were concentrated among the Protestant communities or in any particular areas in Clontarf or Fairview. It will be assumed that Clontarf’s Protestant communities had a mixture of working class and middle class members.

 

The large number of sports clubs active in Clontarf are evidence of a significant middle class population. Tennis, yachting, golf, rugby, swimming and cricket were all provided. An examination of the membership of two of these clubs reveals that the Clontarf Golf Club was exclusively middle-class, that half its members came from outside Clontarf, and that they were of mixed religion.^[8] Clontarf Football Club also had a mixed religious composition, though it was largely Protestant.^[9]

 

One source describes Clontarf as a 'conservative district'.^[10]  It can also be assumed that the Protestant communities were Unionist in politics, though there were 'widely diverging political opinions' among the Methodist community.^[11]  From 1912, the prospect of Home Rule for Ireland , and possibly civil war, loomed; a Home Rule bill was actually placed on the statute books in September 1914, to take affect after the war. Protestants in Clontarf participated in the war with the knowledge of disturbing political change when the conflict terminated.

Chapter One

 

Clontarf's Protestant communities supported the war effort in practical ways such as enlistment, 'war work' and co-operation with economic measures. In the next three sections, the local view of the reasons for war, the extent and pattern of recruitment^[12] and the voluntary aid activities supported by the population, will be examined.

 

The  Reasons for the War

Germany and France went to war on 3rd August 1914. The United Kingdom declared war on Germany the next day. There were various reasons for this: ties of alliance with France; the violation of Belgian neutrality by Germany; a desire to defeat a rival for world dominance. The attitudes to the war expressed by the Church of Ireland community reveal what Clontarf Protestants felt the war to be about. The armed forces are referred to on one occasion as "..defending our land and homes from invasion, and all the horrors that have overtaken the Belgium people."^[13] Another reference was to the men from the parish who had enlisted "...to uphold the honour of our country."^[14] After the war Reverend Connell referred with pride to "...the sailors and soldiers who protected the sanctity of our homes, and have handed down to us our freedom and liberty uncurtailed..."^[15]. This shows that people believed the war to be about national honour, liberty and defending against invasion by Germany. These were the widely accepted reasons for fighting to victory^[16] and must have helped sustain support for the war effort.

 

Recruitment

The outbreak of war resulted in an increase in the size of the British armed forces. The need for more men was met by voluntary recruitment and later, in Britain, by conscription. There were a number of combat theatres and Clontarf men served in Belgium/France, the Dardanelles, the British colonies and on the oceans. Recruits went through a period of training and when posted spent their time on duty or rest. Fighting, when it occurred, was very dangerous and those in the front line experienced the  terrors of modern warfare - charges against machine guns, massive artillery barrages, poison gas, et cetera. Poor hygiene, boredom and military discipline were among the discomforts of trench life, with few, precious comforts. An idea of this can be formed from the recorded experience of the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers ( in which a number of Clontarf men served ) at the Dardanelles in 1915:

 

"...the enemy made a counter-attack, but they were mowed down, and soon all was quiet save for a snap of a sniper's rifle as a chap incautiously raised himself. Those of us who were not on watch were glad to lie down and smoke and talk of those who had fallen until our watch arrived."^[17]

 

Recruitment in Ireland was voluntary for the whole war (unlike in other European countries). It was promoted by an organisation of local committees and recruitment centres, headed by the Central Council for the Organisation of Recruitment in Ireland, and, from October 1915, the Department of Recruitment for Ireland. Use was made of public figures, bands, posters and war heroes to achieve a response. For the Clontarf region the sources that exist for examining recruitment are war memorials in the local Prebyterian, Methodist and Church of Ireland church buildings and a roll of honour for Clontarf Cricket and Football Club. Full details are available for the Methodist and Church of Ireland in regards to casualties and total recruitment, though there is a degree of overlap, involving ten men, who are recorded in both communities’ lists of recruits, probably as a result of religious conversion. The persons listed as involved from the Church of Ireland community may be taken as coming overwhelmingly from Clontarf.^[18] From this data recruitment will be examined for the Clontarf Protestant community as a whole. Comparisons with Catholic recruitment cannot be made owing to lack of information. As happened elsewhere in Ireland, no memorial was erected for the members of the Catholic population in Clontarf who enlisted. However, arguably this reflects post-war attitudes to the war and military service, and not the attitude of the population during the war. It is known that a representative of the Clontarf Catholic community, Alderman Michael Moran, was an executive member of the Central Council for the Organisation of Recruiting in Ireland, thus indicating support in his community for the early war effort^[19]. It may also be assumed that Catholic members of Clontarf Football Club were among the many who joined up from that club^[20].

 

The total number of men who enlisted from the Methodist and Church of Ireland communities was 214. Looking at Table 1, this represents 26% of the male population  and 13% of the total population in 1911. The combined number of those killed is 37, which represents 4.5% of the male  Methodist / Church of Ireland population.

 

It is also possible to estimate the extent of Presbyterian enlistment from census and war memorial information. Clontarf Presbyterian Church also served the Fairview and Ballybough areas^[21]. This means that the war memorial commemorated not just men from Clontarf. Taking the fourteen who died as one-sixth of the total who served, this gives a total of 84 men for Clontarf East and West D.E.D.^[22] This represents 26% of the male Presbyterian population, the same proportion as for the Church of Ireland / Methodist population. As two-thirds of male Presbyterians lived in Clontarf, this proportion of the total, 56, is taken as an estimate of enlistment from that area. The total number of Clontarf Protestants who enlisted is therefore around 270, with 49 deaths (4.7% of males).^[23]

 

Table 3: Clontarf Protestant Male Enlistment and Casualties

 

 

 

Figures with * are estimates: see above and footnote 24. The figure in brackets is the number of persons from that community whose death or involvement is also commemorated by other communities. There are two brothers commemorated by all three congregations, though census information indicates that one was C of I  and the other Presbyterian. The  C of I casualties include one civilian, who died when the S.S Leinster was torpedoed in 1918.

 

These figures indicate a heavy male involvement in the prosecution of the war. There were various, overlapping factors that explain involvement. The most obvious consideration is that a Protestant population would be inclined, as Unionists, to loyally support their King and Country in war-time. This was indeed the case, as can be seen from the verbal identification with the war effort and their active involvement in 'war work'. Reverend John Connell, the Clontarf Church of Ireland rector, for example, stated that

 

 "We are all called upon at this time to do our part in the crisis through which our Empire is passing." ^[24]

 

 It is not possible to compare with the rate of enlistment among Clontarf Catholics to see if religious / political identity influenced the decision to enlist. However, the information for Dublin County and City in 1915 indicates that Protestants were 24 % of those recruited, whlist being only 21% of the City and County population, indicating a somewhat greater inclination to join-up among Protestants.^[25] However, D. Fitzpatrick has pointed out that these county returns for recruiting in 1915 show Catholics were more likely to join-up than Protestants in 14 Irish counties.^[26] As the percentage of Protestants enlisting varied from county to county there must have been other factors involved.

 

The greater likelihood of Protestants joining- up in Dublin could be ascribed, in part, to the enthusiasm shown by the middle classes. Clontarf was a middle-class suburb, a fact helping to explain the presence of 64 officers among the 175 Church of Ireland recruits. A sample was taken of 27 males who joined the armed forces. Of fifteen men on whom there was information fourteen were clerks, whilst the fathers of the rest were middle-class, bar two brothers whose father was from the working class.^[27] This shows a very high middle-class background among recruits. Official figures for Britain indicated that 29% of employed men had enlisted up to March 1916. But among the financial, commercial and professional classes the figure was 40 % or over.^[28] This enthusiasm can, in part, be attributed to the fact that the middle-class males were likely to be healthier than many working class employees and so a larger proportion were more likely to pass the medical examination taken by all those wishing to join-up.^[29]

 

Another factor accounting for recruitment levels was pre-1914 military careers in the British Army. Around 46,000 out of over 200,000 Irish recruits were pre-war servicemen (officers, regulars, naval ratings or reservists).^[30] . Rejoining the Colours or following in a father's footsteps probably influenced a small number of Clontarf Protestant recruits^[31]. A more likely influence from the family on recruitment was the desire of sons and brothers to follow other members of the family who volunteered from 1914 on. The sample of Protestant enlistees and officers referred to above was drawn from 21 families. Six of these families had more than one son in the armed forces, 28% of the sample. This suggests that in a large number of cases recruits could have been influenced in their decision to join-up by the recent example of a brother.

 

Apart from religion, class and family, another useful explanation for joining the armed forces is the influence of groups on an individual. D. Fitzpatrick in a recent analysis, notes that "Those belonging to militias, fraternities or sporting clubs were particularly susceptible to collective pressure."^[32] There are several different examples of this influence on Protestant officers and men from Clontarf.  Two members of the Clontarf lodge of the Freemasons served in the army and at least three other Clontarf men from another Dublin lodge served^[33]. Another contributing source of fraternal / group influence was third level education. There were ten Clontarf Protestants who joined the armed forces whilst they were undergraduate students at Trinity College Dublin. Eight of them had already joined the College's Officers’ Training Corps^[34]. This indicates that the OTC, the ethos of the College during the war and the example of friends were an influence on those Clontarf men at Trinity. The same conditions may have existed at other third level institutions attended by Clontarf persons. The 12th Company of the Boy's Brigade ( Dublin Battalion) was a Clontarf unit and mainly Church of Ireland in membership. This U.K organisation was for boy's of twelve to seventeen. The company's activities included drill, band, ambulance skills and gymnastics. It disclaimed the view of some parents that it was a military organisation.^[35] However, past  members were very numerous among Protestant recruits, in the U.K, Dublin and Clontarf. In the latter case, four officers and seventy members served in the war.^[36]  This is a large proportion of Church of Ireland recruits, but as membership ended at the age of seventeen this may reflect more on the popularity of the Boy's Brigade than on its direct influence on people's decision to enlist. A stronger but indirect influence may have been the instilling of the qualities of physical culture and duty. The same influences would have come from the 32nd Company, which also operated in the Clontarf area and which had close links to the Presbyterian community. Sport in Clontarf was a motivator for its followers to join-up. Both Clontarf's rugby football club and cricket club closed down because so many of their members enlisted. From Clontarf Football Club 108 men joined- up. As one member put it,

 

" Then came the anxious time when the golden rule of sportmen, "Play the game" was to be translated into real life ...Soon everything was abandoned for the greater game..."^[37]

 

129 members of the Cricket and Football Clubs joined in total. Twenty one became Royal Dublin Fusiliers, of whom fourteen were in the 7th Battalion's D Company,"the Pals", a group of middle-class sportsmen.^[38] Of the 214 Methodist and Church of Ireland recruits, 35 were among the 129 who joined from these two clubs. Members of sport's clubs were influenced by the example of their club mates and the idea of war as a 'sport' to join the colours^[39]. Private Reggie P. Wisdom was a member of the Artists’ Rifles ^[40], another 'Pals' unit that offered the chance of serving with persons of the same background. These various examples suggest that in general membership of fraternities was a strong influence on those receiving commissions or enlisting^[41]. However, the decision of Clontarf men to join-up must have been formed by overlapping influences, friends, family, patriotism, not one alone.

 

The next aspect of recruitment examined is the rate at which Protestant Clontarfers joined the armed forces. This relies on information for the Church of Ireland community exclusively. The number joining up was highest in the first period, when enthusiasm was undented by massive losses, stalemate and the prospects of a long war. The figure for Clontarf in 1914 in Table 4 would also include reservists and those already in the armed forces. The numbers entering military service in 1915 were at a higher level (in proportion to the intake for 1914) than in Ireland, overall. Like elsewhere, the numbers joining up declined markedly after 1915. This decline was greater in 1917 in Clontarf than at the national level. There was a slight revival in recruiting in 1918, both nationally and in Clontarf. It seems that most of those from the Church of Ireland community who were willing and able to join-up did so in the first half of the war. Thereafter new recruits were probably men who had just reached military age.

 

Table 4 : Chronology of Recruitment Among

Clontarf's Church of Ireland Males

 

(A) Proportional Comparison

Recruitment in 1914 = 100

Ireland^[42] 1914 100,  1915 105,  1916 43,  1917 32,  1918 24

Clontarf  1914 100,  1915 127,  1916 66,  1917 12,  1918 27

 

(B) Actual number joining the armed forces^[43]

                               

 

 

The information is based on the monthly list in the Clontarf Parish Magazine of Church of Ireland parishioners serving in the army and navy.

 

Unit affiliation is known for all recruits, but rank is only given for members of the Church of Ireland. Of the 175 Church of Ireland recruits, 64 were officers, 36.5% of the total, whereas officers represented only 3.5 % of those in the British Army in 1917/18 . A striking feature of those serving in the army is the high number in the special units such as the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Royal Engineers, Motor Transport, Royal Army Veterinary Corps and the Artillery units. 76 Methodist and Church of Ireland men, 35.5% of all recruits, served in these units. This is perhaps further evidence of a there been a large proportion of educated, middle- class males among the recruits. Another comment that can be made from the tables below is the above average involvement in the Royal Navy. This is a explained by Clontarf's coastal location. Kilrush, Co. Clare, for example, was a seaport and 13.3% of its recruits joined the Royal Navy.^[44]

 

Unit affiliation was important. On one level it could influence the initial decision to join up, in the case of ‘Pals’ units or the dashingly portrayed Royal Flying Corps for example. It would influence a persons chance of survival.^[45] Units were also important for public support - people identified with the fortunes of nati