File:1916 Jan 24. Monteith's letter to Casement.jpg

The Irish Brigade in Zossen

The Irish Brigade, raised by Casement from Irish Prisoners of War in Germany, is hard to research as none of those involved seemed to want to be linked to the Irish Brigade after the war. Neither the men nor their families, nor their regimental histories, nor the British Army nor the British nor the Irish governments, nor the Republican organisations. The whole enterprise sank into obscurity. Nobody wanted to know. Some of the men left memoirs but very little was actually printed, and their own stories have remained hidden in attics or thrown out as rubbish.

One can however recover a lot of what happened with the Irish Brigade. Apart from the extensive writings by Keogh, Kavanagh and Monteith, there is Plunkett's diary, Casement's writings and the German records unearthed by Doerries. I have read the original records made by Rahilly, McDonagh, Mahony, Quinlisk and Meade. Plus service records and their family input from Bailey, Burke, Daly, Delamore, Forde, Golden, Greer, Kennedy, Long, McCabe, Murphy J, O'Callaghan J, Sweeny P,