Category Archives: Military Records

Signing the Ulster Covenant – in County Westmeath?

by Dr. Janice MannA recent search of the Ulster Covenant for a family from Ulster led to a surprising discovery.In 1912 Liberal British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, in desperate need of the support of John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party, proposed a third Home Rule Bill – providing self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom

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Release of More Military Service Pension Applications

The latest release of Military Service Pension Applications on 24th October 2017 adds almost 5,000 new scanned files to the collection, bringing the number of files online up to about 20,000, relating to 6,564 individuals. The files are available to search at the website of the Irish Military Archives.  The Pension Applications have also been indexed

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IRA Nominal Rolls

The Irish Military Archives have published a wealth of material for researching the 1916 Rising on their website.  Amongst this vast collection are the IRA Nominal Rolls.  This record set, with the designation RO, was largely created in 1935 to identify men and women who were active from 23rd April 1916 up to 30th September 1923.   The IRA Nominal

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Dublin Fire Brigade Ambulance Log

Finding contemporary records and accounts of the 1916 Rising can be challenging. Many of the sources used to reconstruct the 1916 Rising and identify the participants and victims were compiled in the aftermath or the years and decades that followed. However, the Dublin Fire Brigade Ambulance Log is a contemporary record of the calls that came into the

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First World War Irish Ancestors

In July 2014 I spent a day at the WWI Roadshow in Trinity College Dublin helping people to find their First World War Irish Ancestors. The event, organised by RTE and the National Library of Ireland in association with Trinity College Dublin was an enormous success and attracted unexpectedly huge crowds. It seems that the lid has been lifted in on identifying

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Brendan O’Carroll Who Do You Think You Are?

One of the most valuable sources when it came to researching the murder of Brendan O’Carroll’s ancestor, were the Witness Statements in the Bureau of Military History collection. Bureau of Military History Witness Statements The Bureau of Military History is a collection of some 1700 witness statements as well as photographs, documents and

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Military Service Pensions Collection

The Military Service Pensions Collection are applications made by individuals or their dependants for the award of a pension and gratuities for service with the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army, the Irish Republican Army, Cumann na mBan and any other organisation who saw active service or were casualties or wounded while on duty between April

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Irish Citizen Army

The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) was formed in October and November 1913 during the period of the Lockout.  The ICA was set up by the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) with the purpose of protecting demonstrating workers and pickets from the police force.  It was also a means of providing activity and purpose for the locked out workers. 

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The Police Gazette or Hue-and-Cry Ireland

The Police Gazette or Hue-and-Cry Ireland was published in Dublin every Tuesday and Friday by Alexander Thom & Co., and is almost always referred to as Hue-and-Cry  It is unclear when Hue-and Cry and was first published in Ireland and exactly how much of the publication survives.  The National Library of Ireland’s holding runs from 1837 to 1917,

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