Volunteer Joseph Egan

On the 1916 Letters website there is a letter from the Police in Liverpool to the Commanding Officer of the Irish National Volunteers seeking Joseph Egan for desertion having been served his conscription papers

Letter re Joseph Egan


Joseph Egan appears in the list of volunteers at the Larkfield Garrison in Kimmage in the witness Statement of Seamus Robinson

Seamus Robinson witness statement

Would like to find out what happened to him e.g. did he escape conscription?

Brodie Helmet

The helmet first used by the British Army in WW1 became "normal issue" around the Somme battle (1st July 1916) when they were issued en masse to soldiers. They had been trench equipment from late 1915 - as one battalion left the trenches, they left behind the helmets for use by the replacement battalion - rather than personal issue to individual soldiers and would generally only be seen on the front line.

Brodie Helmet - wikipedia article

There are also a number of variations in manufacture that help provide additional dating information for photographs/film clips with British soldier wearing such helmets.

The date is significant for anyone looking at Easter Rising photos. Soldiers involved in the Easter Rising did not have helmets so any photo labelled as Easter Rising that shows a soldier wearing a helmet isn't an Easter Rising photo. If it's a photo in Ireland, then the chances are it's from the War of Independence/Tan War dating from January 1919 onwards. There don't seem to be too many photos of British soldiers in Ireland in the period after the Easter Rising and before the War of Independence.

Two photos on the following Easter Rising resource gallery show British soldiers in helmets and are not Easter Rising photos

http://www.easter1916.ie/index.php/gallery/

(thankfully the photos that were labelled as British Army veterans watching/firing on republican/rebel forces are now correctly labelled as Irish Citizen Army).



1915 Brodie had a shallow brim, a raw rim, small loops for a 2 piece leather chin strap

1916 Brodies (Mk I) had a different angle on the slope of the helmet and had a rim around the outer edge of the helmet. This pattern was introduced in April 1916.

Roger Casement resources

A nice collection of resources relating to Roger Casement :

link to Roger Casement resources

Irish Volunteer Uniform Jacket

A nice blog entry from The Cricket Bat That Died for Ireland re an Irish Volunteer uniform jacket left behind at Jacob's after the Easter Rising had been put down :

Irish Volunteer Jacket

Irish Air Corps

Emmet Dalton's witness statement gives a bit of a background to the acquisition of a Martnsyde, the first Irish Air Corps aircraft

Emmet Dalton witness statement

A list of Irish Air Corps aircraft with serial numbers, aircraft type, date of entering service can be found at :

Irish Aircraft list

A useful document with background information re many of the Irish Air Corps aircraft can be found at the following link :

Aircraft background information

The British Pathe site has a number of film clips relating to the Irish Air Corps and aviation in Ireland. The site has a workspace feature to bring related film clips together and I've tried to put the Irish aviation film clips in a workspace :

Irish Aviation workspace

Easter Rising Festival

Looks like there might be an Easter Rising Festival in Dublin this year. Excellent idea. Saturday 26th April 2014, 11:30am to 5pm

Information from Facebook page :

https://www.facebook.com/1916festival

Twitter address @1916Festival

Easter Rising Booklets/Books/Documents

The archives at UCD have a number of booklets produced after the Easter Rising.

I've downloaded copies to my iPad and save them in iBooks. Very handy for then reviewing/referencing.

A Fragment of 1916 History

The Sinn Fein Revolt

1916 Before and After

Fianna Heroes of 1916

Dublin and the Sinn Fein Rising

The Sinn Fein Leaders of 1916

J R Clark notes from 1916

Dublin after the Six Days Insurrection

A must have resource for anyone interested in the Easter Rising :

Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook (also known as the 1916 Rebellion Handbook)

Some additional free ebooks re the Easter Rising can be found at this webpage

Digital Book Index


Karl Spindler's book can be difficult to find/expensive. A PDF version can be found here :

Gun Running for Casement in the Easter Rebellion 1916


If anyone finds any other online booklets/books re the Easter Rising, please feel free to add a comment or email doylejsd@gmail.com.

Edited 20th June 2017 : UCD links updated. Sadly a couple of PDFs no longer available online.