Recruitment and Irish Medical Personnel, 1914–1918

Abstract

This chapter examines the enlistment of Irish doctors into the British Army medical services from 1914 to 1918. This chapter provides the first statistical analysis of Irish doctors’ enlistment trends and explores how medical recruitment was managed in Ireland. In doing so, this chapter provides an in-depth look at the workings of the Irish Medical War Committee and its relationship with medical educational institutions. This chapter also draws attention to how Irish boards of guardians’ hostility towards wartime employment restrictions undermined the War Office’s professional protectionist agendas that were created to provide job security for medical officers who enlisted. In doing so, Ireland’s boards of guardians often discouraged Irish public medical officers from joining up and caused those who had already enlisted to fear for their jobs at home.