"There are thousands who will claim to have been 'out' during Easter Week.": Recognising military service in the 1916 Easter Rising

In: Coleman , M 2018 , ' "There are thousands who will claim to have been 'out' during Easter Week.": Recognising military service in the 1916 Easter Rising ' , Irish Studies Review , vol. 26 , no. 4 . https://doi.org/10.1080/09670882.2018.1523355

Abstract

Using recently released archives from the Military Service Pensions Collection (MSPC), this article assesses the archival evidence available for assessing how many rebels are recognised as having military service in the Easter Rising of 1916. It argues that while the MSPC contributes towards a more accurate estimation of the number who participated in the Rising, especially in the regions outside Dublin, it does not constitute a definitive figure for rebels active in Easter week. Through an examination of the assessment criteria for military service pensions, it shows how the decision to grant recognised pensionable service for the Rising was affected by geography, politics, legal challenges, the timing of an application, and the subjective assessment of individual assessors.