The British Army in Ireland, 1886-1914.

Great Britain faced many difficulties in her attempt to govern Ireland in the 19th century. Among them was the quandary of forcible control--what armed forces should the Irish government depend on to control the country, and how readily should they be used? Though this dissertation argues that Great Britain never satisfactorily answered that question, an investigation of the inter-relationships and problems which faced that portion of the British army stationed in Ireland proves useful both for understanding the subtleties of the British-Irish relationship and for revealing larger complications of empire-holding. Chapter I provides introductory material regarding the army in Ireland in the earlier portion of the 19th century; the British perspective is balanced by Irish sensibilities. Chapter II describes four facets of Irel nd : Catholic Ireland, Anglo-Irish Protestant Ireland , Dublin Castle Ireland, and Military Ireland. Chapter III examines the British officer corps of the 19th century, while Chapter IV describes the isolation of the army from both the civil administrators of Ireland and the London War Office. Chapter V examines the two Irish police forces and the army's relationship with them. Chapter VI describes the bureaucratic history of the abortive attempt to establish a National Reserve for Ireland, a force which then might have been used for home defense. Chapter VII concludes the dissertation with an examination of the Curragh incident of 1914, in which military principles and political contexts collided disastrously. The study argues that Great Britain's ambiguous policy regarding the army's use in Ireland and the accompanying reluctance to station fewer troops in Ireland both complicated Irish problems and handicapped the government in supplying troops to other parts of the empire.PhDModern historyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/158703/1/8204726.pd