Breaking News from Jeff Kildea
After an absence of six years the Irish Anzacs database is back online at irishanzacs.com.
For those not familiar with the term ‘Anzacs’, it derives from the acronym for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. This formation was established at the beginning of the First World War when a combined force of soldiers from Australia and New Zealand were sent to Egypt for training in preparation to join the British forces fighting the Germans on the Western Front.
Due to a change in British strategy, in April 1915 the Anzacs were diverted to the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey. There they fought until the end of 1915 when they were evacuated to Egypt, from where they were finally sent on to the Western Front in early 1916.
Gallipoli was the first military campaign in which Australians fought as a nation. Up until federation in 1901, Australia was comprised of six separate British colonies. So, for Australians, the Gallipoli campaign is seen as significant as one of the nation’s founding myths. It is also significant for the people of New Zealand, which in 1907 had shed its colonial status to become a self-governing dominion. For both nations, “Anzac” is a word that is revered, even to the extent that its commercial use is regulated by legislation.
The Irish Anzacs database is part of the Irish Anzacs Project, which aims to identify the estimated 6000 Irish-born men and women who served in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) during the First World War and to provide a publicly accessible database containing information on each of them. In time, it is hoped to extend the database to include Irish-born men and women who served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
The Irish Anzacs Project began in 2011 as a research undertaking by Dr Jeff Kildea of the then Global Irish Studies Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), made possible by a grant in 2012 from the Irish government’s Emigrant Support Program administered by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The database was launched in October 2014 by the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan TD and was originally hosted on a server at UNSW. But in July 2020 that arrangement ceased. For the past six years attempts to find an alternative institutional host were unsuccessful. But the database has now found a new home at irishanzacs.com.
The database as it currently stands includes the names of more than 5800 Irish Anzacs. It provides families with information on their Irish-born family members who served in the AIF in the war as well as providing statistical data to assist researchers understand the contribution of the Irish to the Australian war effort.
The information in the database has been extracted from the service records held by the National Archives of Australia (NAA), and includes the following details: name, town and county of birth, religion, occupation, marital status, next of kin location, date and place of enlistment, declared age, the unit to which initially posted, and the soldier’s fate and the date thereof.
In addition, information has been added from sources maintained by the Australian War Memorial (AWM) such as the Roll of Honour (which records those who were killed or died as a result of their war service), the Embarkation Roll, the list of Honours and Awards, the Australian Red Cross’s files (which relate to wounded and missing soldiers and prisoners of war), and the Nominal Roll (the inclusion of which is currently ongoing).
Links to NAA and AWM websites enable researchers to view the original records of the Irish Anzacs they are tracing. The database provides for each Irish-born soldier and nurse a comprehensive record of their service in the AIF. The Irish Anzacs website also contains several articles on the relationship between Ireland and Australia during the First World War and about battles in which Irish and Australian soldiers fought together.
Jeff is an honorary professor in Irish Studies at the University of New South Wales and director of the Irish Anzacs Project. He has written extensively on the relationship between Ireland and Australia during the First World War including Anzacs and Ireland (UNSW Press and Cork University Press, 2007). For further information: Email admin@irishanzacs.com ; Website: irishanzacs.com
Tinteán 