The Curragh Mutiny



The Curragh Mutiny

The officers of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade stationed at Curragh (in Dublin) were both British and Irish. They were mostly Unionist supporters.

They (as well as all the other British forces in Ireland) supported the Unionist cause so much that they had been indirectly helping the Ulster Volunteers in their paramilitary campaign against Home Rule.

However, in March 1914 the Brigade received orders from Westminster to protect the British munitions depots from raids by the Ulster Volunteers. This greatly angered the soldiers, who did not want to prevent the Ulster Volunteers from arming themselves, and they refused to carry out the order.

Since all the Curragh soldiers had threatened to resign rather than act against the Ulster Volunteers, the British Government was forced to give them an assurance that the army would never ever be used to fight against the Ulster Volunteers.

This assurance greatly angered Irish nationalists because they saw that since the British Government was not serious about suppressing the Ulster Volunteers they were also obviously not serious about introducing Home Rule. This led many Irish nationalists to join the Irish Volunteers.

This meant that in 1914 Ireland was divided into two armed groups of paramilitaries (Unionists and Nationalists) and was on the brink of civil war. This impending disaster was only averted by the greater crisis of the outbreak of the First World War. As the entire of Europe faced a fight for its freedom, the British Government postponed dealing with the issue of Home Rule, and many in Ireland joined the ranks of the British Army to fight in French and Belgian trenches.

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