10th (Irish) Division is raised.
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| Recruiting Poster, Ireland. |
Army Order Number 324, dated 21 August 1914, ordered the formation of six Divisions for Kitchener's New Army that would include the 10th (Irish) Division. It was to be commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Bryan Mahon until November 1915 and its infantry brigades' battalions were drawn from Ireland's four provinces.
29 Brigade with regiments from Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught included:
5th (Service) Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment
(later became the Divisional Pioneer Battalion)
6th (Service) Battalion The Royal Irish Rifles
5th (Service) Battalion The Connaught Rangers
6th (Service) Battalion The Leinster Regiment
30 Brigade had its depots in the South of Ireland and included:
6th (Service) Battalion The Royal Dublin Fusiliers
7th (Service) Battalion The Royal Dublin Fusiliers
6th (Service) Battalion The Royal Munster Fusiliers
7th (Service) Battalion The Royal Munster Fusiliers
31 Brigade with its depots in Ulster included:
5th (Service) Battalion The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
6th (Service) Battalion The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
5th (Service) Battalion The Royal Irish Fusiliers
6th (Service) Battalion The Royal Irish Fusiliers
Following its move to concentrate at Basingstoke in May 1915, the 10th (Irish) Division would land in Gallipoli in August 1915 and then move at the end of September 1915 to fight in Salonika and Macedonia. From there the Division moved to concentrate in Egypt by October 1917, before deploying to join Allenby's Army in Palestine. The Division would remain in Palestine until after the fighting when Turkey signed the armistice treaty on 30 October 1918.
On St Patrick's Day 1917, John Redmond, the Irish Nationalist politician, wrote:
The history of the l0th (Irish) Division is, in many respects, unique. It was the first Irish Division raised and sent to the Front by Ireland since the commencement of the War. Not alone that, but it was the first definitely Irish Division that ever existed in the British Army.
Irish Divisions and Irish Brigades played a great part in history in the past, but they were Divisions and Brigades, not in the service of England, but in the service of France and other European countries and America.
The creation of the l0th (Irish) Division, therefore, marks a turning point in the history of the relations between Ireland and the Empire.
(Below, the left of the three officers nearest to the camera is Lieutenant General Sir Bryan Mahon, former Commander 10th (Irish) Division, as Commander British Salonika Army, in February 1916. (Image © IWM (Q 31762))
