The Irish Landed Class and the British Army, 1850–1950

The Irish landed class in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries played a very prominent role in the officer corps of all three British armed services, particularly the army. There exists, however, no systematic examination of the background of these officers or the scale of the Irish gentry’s military involvement during what was a politically turbulent period in Ireland. This article, based on an analysis of over 1000 Irish landed families, looks at the number of men from these families commissioned between 1850 and 1950; where they came from, socially and geographically; the regiments they joined; and the impact on them of the two world wars.