In doing this project our focus and inspiration was to examine the oftentimes forgotten, yet nonetheless still important, role of the Irish in World War I.
An Irish history class we all took this year focused on the events of 1916 Easter Uprising and the modern commemorations 100 years later. In the class discussion, we learned that Ireland’s collective memory often remembers the men from the Uprising more than those who were fighting on the Western Front at the same time. We were also assigned to read Sebastian Barry’s book A Long Long Way, which really introduced us to the Irishmen serving in the war.
Thus, we wanted to examine the WWI connection to the 1916 Easter Uprising. Specifically, why one is remembered over the other and celebrated in different areas of Ireland (i.e. North and South).
While we wanted to focus on as much as possible there is only so much that can be put into a website like this. We provided a general overview of the Irish in the Easter Uprising and on the Western Front. There are many more areas of focus one could concentrate a project around other than 1916. Aside from parts of the propaganda section, recruitment was given a limited discussion in our website. The immediate after effects of the war, such as the Irish Civil War, is another area that a group could expand upon from this site.
Overall we feel we did a thorough job of examining the connection between the 1916 Rising and World War One. Each distinct section we focused on was clearly interconnected with the others to provide both an informative view of the events and a smooth web design for visitors.