Boylan - Possible Motivations
Anthony Boylan’s possible motivations for enlistment in 1908 are more difficult to determine. Irish Catholic enlistment had been in fairly steady decline since the mid-nineteenth century, and anti-enlistment rhetoric from Irish nationalists like M.P. John Redmond during the Boer War (1899-1902) only worsened this trend.1 Interestingly, the demographics of Irish recruits in the early 1900s differed from those of the First World War. During the war, the majority of volunteers tended to come from urban or industrial areas; before 1914, however, most recruits were semiliterate rural or agricultural laborers.2 As we have seen, Boylan was literate, but he fits the trend of recruits coming from a rural background.
It is unlikely that Boylan enlisted in the British army for ideological reasons. In the early 1900s, most recruits tended to enlist for economic or personal reasons, such as boredom or a desire for independence or adventure. For example, John Lucy of Cork enlisted with his younger brother in the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles—Boylan’s unit—in 1912; in his memoir, Lucy recalled no particular nationalist or altruistic motivations for joining the army. Instead, he stated that he and his younger brother were bored, they were tired of their family’s control, and they wanted adventure and independence. However, he noted that while enlisting he and his brother swore the required oath of allegiance to King George V “with some national qualms of conscience.” As a “sop” to their feelings, they chose to join a staunchly Irish regiment, the Royal Irish Rifles.3 It is unknown whether Boylan felt the same, although it is worth noting that the Royal Irish Rifles were based in and primarily recruited in Ulster, not in Boylan’s native county of Westmeath.
Anthony Boylan at least seems to have enlisted with his family’s knowledge and possible approval, given that his father provided a character reference. This will be discussed in more detail in the next post.
Terence Denman, “‘Ethnic Soldiers Pure and Simple’? The Irish in the Late Victorian British Army,” War in History 3, no. 3 (July 1996): 262.
Peter Karsten, “Irish Soldiers in the British Army, 1792-1922: Suborned or Subordinate?,” Journal of Social History 17, no. 1 (1983): 37.
John F. Lucy, There’s a Devil in the Drum (Naval & Military Press, 2001. First published 1938), 15-16.