An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 21 26 County Casualties of the Great War: Vol 1: Abbey - Britton to Vol 15: Walsh - zimber By SgT WAynE FITzgERALD about the author: Tom Burnell, historian and Irish Defence Forces veteran of the border campaign during 'the Troubles,' is deeply committed to remember and chronicle the Irish men and women who died during the Great War. For far too long many Irish people have been afraid to speak of these heroes who gave up their lives over a hundred years ago. Now is their time to finally be remembered. I n 1923 eight volumes of 'Ireland's Memorial Records' were pub- lished, the purpose of which was to provide a remembrance of those Irish men and women who died in the great War. It was a wonderful undertaking and a very polished end product. For almost 100 years it was accepted as the most comprehen- sive listing of our Irish heroes of the great War, but nonetheless, it had an Achilles heel in that there were many omissions: specifically, it did not record many RAF/RFC, Mercantile Marine, South African Army, Canadian Army, or uS Army casualties. Its great- est failing was that it assumed every man in an Irish regiment of the British Army was an Irishman. '26 County Casualties of the great War' is the 21st century undertaking of this task, cov- ering in greater detail the casualties of those belonging to the 26 counties of the now Republic of Ireland. We will remember them. These 15 volumes weigh 23 Kilos and 600mm of shelf space is required, the 15 volumes covering the 26 counties is the work of historian Tom Burnell, which took him 15 years to complete. Tom is a Defence Forces Veteran, having served in the 70s/80s with 2 Fd Sigs Coy in Collins Bks, Dublin and on the border during 'the Troubles' with 27 Inf Bn in Castleblaney, he also served in the FCÁ. "Everyone serving in an Irish regiment was considered being an Irishman, everyone in the Leinsters and Munsters including all the officers were consid- ered an Irishman", said Tom. 49,600 Irishmen died in the Great War, so Tom had to go through all the 92 print records of the Soldiers who died in the Great War books. Then cross-reference everything with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission works and letters to gain NOK details and all the newspapers from that time, in order to compile the 26 County Casualties of the Great War Volumes 1 to 15 (A to Z). "With access to the war records databases we have now I was able to compile these volumes with more information including next of kin, med- als etc." In the last book, there is a statistics section that will tell you the break- down of all the ranks, ages, and cemeteries and ac- cidental deaths or suicides. Suicides or accidental deaths are an interest- ing section, with deaths caused by badly feeding machine guns, cleaning guns, handling munitions or fuses. Only suicides at home are recorded and not on the battlefield, and an unusual one, was walking through a second story window. Tom said there is a grey area of those not included in these volumes, and include: Munitions workers, mercantile marine, sailors or merchant trawlers sunk during the war, and armed veterans of the Georgius Rex Brigade or 'Gorgeous Wrecks' as they were commonly called. The volumes can be purchased from Amazon.co.uk. author: Tom Burnell - publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publish- ing Platform, April 2017 - iSBn: 978- 1546405375 - pages: 574 - price: €16 per volume

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