JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 888

In the heavy mist of the Civil War, where brother fought brother, there was another sort of fratricide, of countrymen removed from their homes, finding themselves in America and there fighting against one another in opposition. Such is the case of the Irish in the American Civil War, where 180,000 of the immigrants fought in the war, with 30,000 fighting in butternut, and 150,000 fighting in blue.   The Irish faced one another across battlefields like of Appomattox, Malvern Hill, and especially Antietam, along the Sunken Road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was thinking about the American Irish of New York and Pennsylvania and Louisiana and Texas of 1864 while looking at this Underwood & Underwood New Photo Service photograph of the “Irish Tommies” of WWI.  It shows a large group of Irishmen displaying their trophies taken from Germans, and dated 18 July 1917. This was also a period of terrific change and hardship, what with the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Proclamation of the Irish Republic (24 April 1916) having taken place just a year earlier

 

I don’t know what it meant to be Irish and fighting with the Brits during the war, during this time of Trouble and upheaval (the enemy of my enemy bit come to mind).  It is interesting to see this piece by Sinn Feinist and Irish Republican Robert Lynd in the Irish War News, “If the Germans Conquered England”, and making elegantly and cleverly making the case of superior similarity between the British in Ireland and the Germans in England.  I know it is far off the mark to think about black slaves

owned by the Cherokees sold into service to fight for the Confederacy, but maybe not so very far off….

(Irish War News source)

Read the full text by Robert Lynd IF THE 
GERMANS CONQUERED ENGLAND, AND 
OTHER ESSAYS Printed by George Robert, Dublin, 1917.

 

The article begins:

“When a small tradesman applies for exemption from military service on the ground that his business would be ruined by his absence, a question that is often put to him is: “What do you think will happen to your business if the Germans win the war ? ” As a rule the tradesman does not know what to think. He has no means of measuring world-catastrophes. He has not Dr. Johnson’s short way with questions to which there is no answer. In the first place, the small tradesman does not believe in the possibility of a German victory. In the second place, he has not the slightest idea what would happen to his business as the result of one. Perhaps, however, he knows as much about the matter as the members of the tribunals. All of us know that a German victory which involved the conquest of England would make life intolerable for Englishmen until the conquest was undone. But as to its effect on small businesses, that is another matter. It is quite possible that the little grocery, the little tobacco-shop, and the confectioner’s would be able to hold up their heads under German rule as under English. The valid argument against a German conquest is not that it would make an end of the small business man ; it is that it would make an end of a free England. If it could be proved that a German conquest would add twenty-five per cent, to the incomes of all Englishmen, even that would not make it tolerable. Most men in all nations are ready to sacrifice their lives in order that their country may be free.”