Settling in and Earning Their Keep: Life in K-Lines

Abstract

K-Lines, the first of the belligerent internment camps in neutral Ireland, has consistently been misrepresented as a prisoner of war camp, and consequently the extensive concessions offered to the internees have been depicted as strange and bizarre oddities. The fact that the internees were offered generous parole and were allowed to leave the camp daily has been a particular point of wonder. However, as this chapter shows, conditions such as these were also prevalent in Switzerland, which interned far more belligerent personnel than Ireland. The de Valera government consciously modelled its internment policy on European precedents, paying particular attention to Sweden and Switzerland. At the same time, Dublin was involved in the everyday lives of prisoners of war abroad, through the sending of Red Cross parcels and personal packages to camps all over Europe.