Volume 2

The Army and the Curragh Incident, 1914

Click here to view a text extract from this publication

The events at the Curragh Camp near Dublin on 20/21 March 1914, and the drama continued in London over the following nine days, have a special significance in British military history. Although sometimes erroneously referred to as a ‘Mutiny’, the Curragh Incident does remain one of the very few occasions in modern times when the army asserted itself in face of the civil power in peacetime.

Two previous books in particular have investigated the Curragh Incident, which has also been discussed in the context of Irish Home Rule and of the leading participants, but none of these accounts has benefited from all surviving primary sources - this is the first time access has been granted to certain key archives. By emphasising the wider impact of the Incident on the army, this selection of original documents illuminates a number of aspects that have gone unremarked. The army's increasing concern that it might be drawn into civil war in Ulster is illustrated, and the accepted version of events in Ireland and London is shown in a new light.