A battle that changed Ireland

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more.

1:00de la grande guerre, as we lay to rest an unknown soldier of the Great War. Though his name is lost to us, his life is not. He was someone's son, a friend, a comrade in arms. I never seen so many dead men plumped together as what I saw about it. And I thought to myself, All the world's dead. They're all dead.

1:37Jordan Dunbar:We're standing on the site of one of the bloodiest days in the history of warfare, burying one of the many young men who died here. The 1st of July, 1916, the start of the Battle of the Somme. Here in the fields of northern France, more than 19 ,000 British soldiers and 6 ,000 German soldiers lost their lives in that one single day of the First World War. 40 ,000 British soldiers were injured or captured. It's still one of the costliest and most bitterly fought battles in British military history. And in the following four months of battle, more than a million soldiers from both sides would be wounded or killed.

2:30Jordan Dunbar:In Northern Ireland, where I come from, whole streets lost their sons in the first two days of the battle. And here in my home city, Belfast, among the Protestant community, the memory of what happened at the Somme 110 years ago is still, incredibly, after all these years, very much part of daily life. I used to live just over there, and even just walking to the shops, you have the Somme remembered on walls around you. Behind this building, literally just on that street, there's another Somme mural. Because in Belfast, more than the Second World War, the Somme is remembered on walls across the city, not just at war memorials.

3:16Jordan Dunbar:And it's not just murals and memorial gardens. In working-class loyalist communities right across Northern Ireland, marching bands are a massive part of life. People get together, play the flutes, the drums, and they'll march for many different reasons, but one of the big reasons that they do march is to commemorate the Somme. Why the Somme? What is it about that battle that's so important to you guys? Well, the battle of the Somme is most important to the Protestant Unionist community because of the sacrifice made. On the first day of the Somme, there was over 2 ,000 lives lost that came from these streets.

3:53So we think that it's important that we carry their name on and remember the sacrifice that they give for the full week of other things we have today. You know, when you look back and listen to some of the stories that I've certainly heard, there was young men ran away from home. A fellow out of our band, his uncle, great uncle, run away from home, to enlist, to go and fight. I don't think there's too many people who do that today, go and defend their country, and you can't forget that.

4:15Jordan Dunbar:Yet just a few streets away, in the mainly Catholic part of Belfast, people see that time very differently. Back in 1914, their sons went to fight in the First World War for Britain too. But today, there are no parades, no commemorations. This is the most famous nationalist part of Belfast. And here for decades you had silence and in some cases even shame. Yet all of those men went through the same thing at the same battle. But the reactions on each side of the city are completely different. You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Jordan Dunbar. and in this episode I want to find out more about the untold stories from one of history's most infamous battles.

5:05Jordan Dunbar:With trench warfare now returned to Europe and Ukraine, I want to know how that battle over a century ago in the war supposed to end all wars shaped families and communities and the island of Ireland that I call home. How families are still discovering, all these years later, the truth of what happened to their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. families like mine. So we actually did a little bit of research on your great-grandfather. Okay, wow. You were saying he came back a changed man. Yeah. He absolutely did. We didn't know any of this is all... To hear this officially is... Yeah, wow. Yeah.

5:44Jordan Dunbar:And it's not just my family in Ireland. Others across the UK are also uncovering things they didn't know about their relatives who fought at the Somme. Wow! Look at all these letters. Hundreds in there. Yeah, probably even thousands. I feel like a suburban Indiana Jones. It's incredible. Can we take some of these downstairs? Yeah, of course. Absolutely. Let's go through them. A few years ago, brothers Chris and David were clearing out their father's attic in a quiet suburban street in North London when they found a huge stash of letters and other memorabilia. The letters were from their grandfather's younger brother, Victor, who fought at the Battle of the Somme.

6:30Not even opened. Is it over 110 years old? Yeah, absolutely. It was quite a find. So that was Victor.

6:39Jordan Dunbar:Chris shows me a black and white picture of a dapper young man in his uniform with facial hair I can only dream of and another picture of his best friend. That was Gerald. You took the photos. Both great moustaches. Yeah. Very off the time. Yeah. When the First World War broke out in 1914, Chris and David's grandfather, Frank, had gone with his younger brother, Victor, to their nearby recruiting office in London to sign up to fight. But Frank was refused on medical grounds. Instead, he had to content himself with the hundreds of letters his brother sent home, sometimes daily, describing life at the front.

7:18Jordan Dunbar:Dear lussies and lads. Dear lussies and lads, yeah. So my habitation at present and for the two following days is in a little house or rather farmstead, which we call Red House. This place is the nearest fortified position. We hold about 600 yards behind the trenches. Somebody in our bedroom is trying to kill us by singing Thora. Look at this. Last Wednesday we went to the cinema. Wow. So this is 1915. Yeah. And all's well. The mates are all together. chasing girls or going to the cinema. When they're not fighting, they're trying to have some form of normality, right? Yeah, and there's stories about getting local wine and then staying up all night drinking it.

8:03And then there's stories about where they befriend a cow who's been injured, but it means that they get a pint of milk. And then alongside that is pictures of a gas attack.

8:14Jordan Dunbar:The pictures were taken by Victor's friend Gerald. Soldiers weren't allowed to have cameras, so Gerald photographed in secret. It's an extraordinary record. One photograph shows Victor sitting on a box in the middle of a deserted road riding, maybe riding one of the letters we're looking at now. Do you see his attitude to the war changing as it goes on? Oh, 100%. That's absolutely the thing. The letters start to get a little bit darker. In one of the letters he described seeing a village absolutely obliterated. There were dead horses, dead bodies, buildings destroyed. I think this is probably the most telling letter.

8:56And he writes, one wonders that men can be such utter fools as to know no other way of settling their disputes except by causing such destruction to life, property that can never be replaced.

9:09Jordan Dunbar:It's like a different person. Yeah. One other thing David and Chris found in their father's attic was Victor's will. Dear father, not having made a will before leaving home, I have done so in my paybook. Five pounds from my bank account to go to Frank on behalf of the tennis club to be used as they see fit. The remainder of the money to mother. My post office savings and war loan and all personal effects to go to Frank. Victor Hember, 27th of the 6th, 1916. Wow. So you've got the will being written five days before Battle of the Somme begins. They had a sense that this was going to be bigger than all they've done.

9:55Jordan Dunbar:That will was the last thing Victor ever sent home to his family. He was killed on the first day of the battle. Chris and David say their grandfather Frank never recovered from the grief or the guilt of not being able to protect his younger brother or fight for his country. He was still trying to sign up even in 1917. Even after his brother's death? It's just heartbreaking as well that he felt then that he needed to resign his post as the captain of the tennis club. Does he say why he did that? Yeah, but he doesn't feel he's an appropriate person to be in charge of other people. He couldn't deal with it?

10:37He still couldn't deal with it, the fact that he wasn't there.

10:41Jordan Dunbar:Victor's body was never recovered

10:52Jordan Dunbar:I've come back home to Belfast The Battle of the Somme has cast a long shadow over what happened here in Northern Ireland and just like Chris and David's family and so many families across the UK and Europe it had a lasting impact on my family too I remember my father telling me that his grandfather, Josiah Dunbar, had been injured at the Somme and had seen terrible things. When he came home from the war, Josiah was a different person. He never worked again and it sounded like it was a cold house to grow up in. My father only knew this from other people. There was a medal in a drawer but silence about how it got there.

11:35Jordan Dunbar:Josiah never spoke about what he'd been through, but it affected all of us who came after.

11:44I like to tell my visitors on the tours that the ghosts of the Somme continue to walk among us today, Jordan, whether we realise it or not.

11:53Jordan Dunbar:Historian Jason Burke gives walking tours around Belfast about the Battle of the Somme and the First World War. The very streets where I grew up, for example, and why I have an interest in the First World War at all. The street names, for example, were Somme Drive, Thiepphal Avenue, Albert Drive, you know, and those are battle sites from the First World War. So I grew up literally with the war all around me as well. Why was it so important? It's often said that there wasn't a street across the province which didn't have the curtains and blinds because a young man from that particular street had lost his life at the Battle of the Somme.

12:32Including Jason's own great uncle, George Burke. But it's symbolic of, you know, why the Somme's so fascinating, because in actual fact it's not what happens on the battlefield, it's everything that happens after and right up to this day.

12:45Jordan Dunbar:In 1914, when the First World War broke out, the whole of the island of Ireland was part of Britain, not just Northern Ireland as it is now. The British government had just agreed to devolve some power to Dublin. They called it Home Rule. But the communities in the north, the Protestants, who were close to Britain, known as Loyalists or Unionists, and the Catholics, who were more supportive of Irish nationalism, couldn't agree. Irish nationalism was somewhat comfortable with the idea of a sort of quasi-independent Ireland within the confines of the United Kingdom. However, Unionism had resisted this at every turn.

13:26They very much saw Home Rule as, I suppose, a political watering down of the situation.

13:33Jordan Dunbar:Then, in April 1916, some more militant Irish nationalists decided they did want more power for Dublin. And they launched a rebellion. It was called the Easter Rising. A great historian describes the Easter Rising as a flip moment, as a moment that changed everything in Irish history. And again, the war is the context for all of this. With the British army distracted by the war, rebels in Dublin proclaim independence. The British quickly respond. A five-day battle ends with the rebel leaders being put to death by firing squad. Britain wanted to be seen to be reacting swiftly in order to set an example to other potentially rebellious nations within the British Empire.

14:21And in reality, the Easter Rising didn't have much public support. Their over-the-top reaction, you might say, somehow managed to turn Irish society against them in the space of just a few days.

14:35Jordan Dunbar:It's against this backdrop that two months later, Irish soldiers will be among those who fight and die at the Battle of the Somme.

14:52Jordan Dunbar:These are the guys that I've come to see. So this band, Goodreads Star, were based just a few streets away from where I used to live. That is why I'm worried about his wrists. So this is it. This is the Gertrude Starr Memorial. Mural then? Yeah, it is indeed. Yeah, as far as I can remember, there's always been a mural from our band on this wall. Kyle and Peter are two of the drummers from the Gertrude Starr Flute Band. They're young, not a generation you'd normally think would be interested in a battle over a century old. So guys, where does the name come from? There was 12 young men from Gertrude Street who actually went to the Somme and died at the time.

15:31And we just wanted to make sure that they were being remembered in the right way. The day of most importance for us is the 1st of July, the Battle of the Psalm Commemoration parade. You'll have tens of thousands of people that come out and watch it.

15:41Jordan Dunbar:What about you guys? Is it in any way personal for you? Do you guys have that connection? Yeah, there would be a great great uncle of mine, Alan Dempster. He went off and was killed alone the 1st of July. And there was a lot of other boys in the band, has had a lot of family members as well. Like Peter's great great uncle, my great grandfather, Josiah Dunbar, was also from the Protestant community. But it wasn't only Unionists who signed up to fight. Thousands of Irish nationalists also fought for the British army. But there are no parades to commemorate their part in the Somme. And it's many of their stories that are only now coming to light.

16:20Jordan Dunbar:You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service with me, Jordan Dunbar.

16:33the globe. Fed up with losing out to hidden fees when you send money abroad with your everyday bank? Choose the smart way. Wise. You can count on the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google. No unwelcome surprises. Plus, ditch that where's my money feeling. Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart. Get wise. Download the wise app today. T's and C's apply.

17:08Jordan Dunbar:So I'm on my way to visit a new museum in Belfast. It's called the Untold Museum. And its mission is to tell the stories of the men and women across the island of Ireland who served in the British Army. And to help people all these years later trace loved ones. Hi, Sean. How's it going? I've come to meet Siobhan, who's been researching her family's history. My grandfather was Michael Brennan. He was an Irish national volunteer who served at the front line. The men from Belfast, from the Irish nationalist volunteer background, they joined up in good faith, believing they were fighting for Ireland and freedom of small nations.

17:46Jordan Dunbar:So Michael and those Catholic nationalist soldiers believe they're going to get rewarded with Irish independence. So it's a sense of betrayal. It is indeed. Many from the nationalist community believed if they fought for the United Kingdom, Dublin would be granted more control away from London once the war was over. But instead, it took another war. The War of Irish Independence before Britain allows in the south what will eventually become an independent Irish state. And Ireland is partitioned into north and south. I asked Siobhan what happened to her grandfather when he finally returned from the First World War trenches.

18:29Jordan Dunbar:Instead of coming home to the peace he must have dreamed of, she says he was met with more violence as conflict erupts between unionists and nationalists. He served at the front line. His brother did not. But when they came back, their home was raided and shop was raided and his brother was actually shot in the back. Hundreds of people on both sides were attacked or killed in sectarian violence fuelled by battle-hardened returning soldiers. His brother, he survived but died in the 1930s as a result of his wounds. So there was that, what was our reward? When they first came home, Siobhan says, the Nationalist Brigades did commemorate their part in the war, just like Unionists do.

19:13Jordan Dunbar:But as violence spiralled, that stopped. They marched through Belfast, had church services, but then some of their members were actually shot dead and the last march they had was up the Falls Road for a burial of some of their compatriots and comrades and after that they didn't commemorate again. Instead, she says, many in the nationalist community felt shame that they'd served in the army. The army of a country that, after all that had happened, many of them no longer felt part of. It was hidden. It wasn't talked about at all. My grandfather returned his war medals. He didn't want them. He didn't want that reminder.

19:51Jordan Dunbar:These stories of young Irish nationalists like Siobhan's grandfather who fought for the British were often kept quiet, even from their own families. Telling his story is like telling everybody else's as well. It gives people the confidence to come out and say, my grandfather was also in the army. So more and more people from the nationalist community are discovering this and getting in contact? Yes, they are indeed. Historian Jason Burke puts this greater willingness now to talk about the part that nationalist soldiers played in the Great War down to the Northern Ireland peace process, a process that began 30 years ago.