Episode 15 - Panel 4a - ‘Disputed legacies: British military charities, the new Irish state and the courts, 1923-29’ - Dr. Paul Huddie

Southern Irish Loyalism in Context

Were British ex-servicemen in Ireland viewed only as ‘British loyalists’ or those who had fought for or were still associated with ‘the enemy’ in the wake of the Great War and Irish Revolution? To date the works of Taylor, Fitzpatrick and Robinson have gone a long way to address that question and to show the scale and nature of hostility faced by those men and their families during the period of 1920-23, and thereafter, as well as the benefits that they received from the British State. But what other options did they have or could they have? Could they turn to charity after 1922 and if so which charities? In the latter part of the long nineteenth century the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland witnessed a popular explosion in charity and philanthropy. This also saw the burgeoning of military-specific charities – one hundred by 1900. While Ireland remained within the union things were simple: British soldiers and their families could often receive assistance throughout the British Isles, but once Ireland was partitioned things got complicated. A question that effectively loomed large in 1922 was: would the new Irish State prevent those old charities continue to support such men and their families as they had done for decades before. This paper seeks to answer this overarching question by using the 1923-29 transnational legal dispute over the legacies of two particular British military charities based in Ireland as a prism through which to view and analyse those developments and address three specific questions. Namely the place of British ex-serviceman and his family (as well as Protestants) in the new State, that State’s policy towards all things formerly owned or administered by the British state, and the policy of the new State in relation to its subordination to the law. Dr Paul Huddie completed his doctorate at Queen’s University Belfast in 2014. He is the author of several peer-reviewed publications including The Crimean War and Irish society (2015) and an executive member of the IAPH. His general interest is war and society (Britain and Ireland) in the long 19C, but his specialism is British military welfare: charity, philanthropy and the state. In 2017 he will present papers on this theme at New York and Bucharest. His invited chapter on the role of the charity SSAFA in ex-service families’ welfare provision in 1919-21 is presently under review by Manchester University Press.