Produced by Jeannie Howse, David Clarke and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) * * * * * +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has | | been preserved. | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * THE IRISH AT THE FRONT THE IRISH AT THE FRONT By MICHAEL MACDONAGH _Author of "Irish Life and Character"_ _WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY_ JOHN REDMOND, M.P. HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO 1916 PREFATORY NOTE This narrative of the more signal feats of the Irish Regiments in France, Flanders, and at the Dardanelles, is based on letters of regimental officers and men, interviews with wounded soldiers of the battalions, and those invalided home, and, also, in several cases, on the records compiled at the depots. The war is the greatest armed struggle that the world has ever seen, and when we think of the heroism and resolution shown in it, the trials and the sufferings, the victories and the disasters, and then turn to the bald and trite official despatches, the dissimilitude of things, the contrast, is most abrupt and jarring. But so it is, and probably we must continue to rely upon the accounts given by the men in the fighting line for any real appreciation of the nature of the war. MICHAEL MACDONAGH. CONTENTS PAGE PREFATORY NOTE v A DAUNTLESS BATTLE LINE ix The Irish Regiments and their War Honours INTRODUCTION BY MR. JOHN REDMOND, M.P. 1 Ireland's Part in the War CHAP. I.--THE RETREAT FROM MONS 15 How the Munsters Saved the Guns and got Ringed Round with Fire II.--BATTLE OF THE RIVERS 29 Rally of the Irish Guards to the Green Flag at the Marne III.--CONTEST FOR THE CHANNEL COAST 38 Impetuous Dash of the Leinsters, and Royal Irish, and Grim Tenacity of Irish Guards and Rifles