This chapter presents John Bourne's view of the British army as a collection of self-contained battalions. Each battalion in the Irish regiments had its own separate and unique disciplinary record. During the past fifteen years, research into the British army during the Great War has expanded enormously. There has been a decisive move away from the stale debates of the 1920s and 1930s over British generalship during the conflict, and the war and society school of military history has been firmly embraced by many able historians. With regard to Irish regiments, historians have been well...

This chapter presents John Bourne's view of the British army as a collection of self-contained battalions. Each battalion in the Irish regiments had its own separate and unique disciplinary record. During the past fifteen years, research into the British army during the Great War has expanded enormously. There has been a decisive move away from the stale debates of the 1920s and 1930s over British generalship during the conflict, and the war and society school of military history has been firmly embraced by many able historians. With regard to Irish regiments, historians have been well served. The disbandment of the Southern Irish regiments in 1922 created an impetus for the histories of these units to be written, and officers who had served in these units during the Great War provide an abundance of primary material.