• 1 Fionnuala Walsh, “Historiography 1918-Today (Ireland)”, in 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclop (...)
• 2 Joe Duffy, Children of the Rising: The Untold Story of the Young Lives Lost during Easter 1916, Dub (...)
• 3 Kindheit im Ersten Weltkrieg, Christa Hämmerle (ed.), Vienna, Böhlau, 1993; Edward Ross Dickinson, (...)
• 4 Historians have examined wartime propaganda aimed at nationalist children and youths in the Redmond (...)

1The Irish home front in the First World War emerged as an important subject for historians in the late 20^th century. In addition to numerous studies of Irish recruitment to the British armed forces and Irish involvement in the fighting overseas, topics such as Ireland’s civil mobilisation and civilian participation in a wide range of war charities and war work, especially by women, have received extensive coverage since historians began to examine more closely the country’s involvement in the Great War.1 While considerable progress has been made in recent decades in elucidating what was once a comparatively neglected field of study, there are still important gaps in our knowledge of Ireland’s involvement in the First World War. One of these is the impact of the war on Ireland’s children. Apart from Joe Duffy’s monograph on the children who were killed during the Easter Rebellion,2 relatively little has been written on Irish children’s wartime experiences, in stark contrast to the scholarship on children in other countries.3 This article addresses this gap in the literature by focusing on one type of source that has been largely overlooked by historians: Irish children’s letters to the press. Focusing on “Granny’s Corner” and its successor, “Young Folks’ Corner”, the Weekly Irish Times’s children’s columns during the First World War, it offers an original contribution to the history of Irish childhood by exploring the numerous ways in which youthful readers of this publication responded to and were affected by the Great War, as well as demonstrating the rich potential of children’s correspondence to newspapers for accessing children’s reflections on their own lives and the world in which they lived.4

• 5 Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland, Laurel Brake, Marysa Demo (...)
• 6 Siân Pooley, “Children and the News”, in The Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press, vol. (...)
• 7 Diana Dixon, “Children and the Press, 1866-1914”, in The Press in English Society from the Seventee (...)
• 8 For the history of The Irish Times, see Mark O’Brien, The Irish Times: A History, Dublin, Four Cour (...)
• 9 One cannot be certain that the anonymous Granny was a woman, but for convenience’s sake this articl (...)
• 10 In March 1916, due to government restrictions on paper imports, the space devoted to “Granny’s Corn (...)

2The first children’s column in a newspaper in the United Kingdom was The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle’s “Children’s Corner”, which started in October 1876. Many other British weekly newspapers introduced their own columns for children by the end of the 19^th century.5 As Siân Pooley explains, “Participatory children’s columns became part of the intellectual life of particular Victorian and Edwardian localities, principally across northern and industrial England”.6 Newspaper editors, eager to increase their circulation figures, realised that including children’s columns in their publications was an effective means of making their newspapers more attractive to a youthful readership, and children proved to be eager contributors to the numerous forums that editors provided for airing their views on subjects that were of particular interest to them.7 It is likely that the popularity of children’s columns in British newspapers was an important factor behind their introduction to newspapers in Ireland. “Granny’s Corner” was inaugurated on 10 March 1900 in the Weekly Irish Times, the sister publication to the leading Irish unionist daily newspaper, The Irish Times.8 Run by the eponymous Granny9 – whose persona was that of a kind, elderly woman whose numerous correspondents were her grandchildren, a fiction which the child correspondents went along with when submitting their writings to the newspaper – “Granny’s Corner” attracted correspondence from scores of Irish children (all of whom were younger than sixteen years of age) each week. The main subjects that the children wrote about were their families, their pets, their schools, and their activities during their Christmas, Easter and summer holidays. Many also wrote short descriptions of the towns or villages in which they lived. Prizes were awarded to children who won the various essay and other competitions that were a regular feature of the column, with many of these winners having their photographs published in the newspaper. For those who failed to win a prize there were encouraging words of consolation from Granny, and she also penned brief notes of acknowledgement to children whose letters were not published in the column. The column’s title changed to “Young Folks’ Corner” in March 1916, but this newly-titled section continued to be run by Granny and its format was virtually the same as that of “Granny’s Corner”.10

• 11 There was also one letter from a Christadelphian child, fourteen-year-old Nora Caverock Lees of Rat (...)
• 12 WIT, 5 September 1914, 6 March 1915, 9 November 1918.
• 13 A rare exception is eleven-year-old Eyre Herbert Ievers, of Mount Ievers, Sixmilebridge, County Cla (...)
• 14 WIT, 13 February 1915, 6 March 1915, 14 April 1917.
• 15 WIT, 3 October 1914, 22 May 1915, 12 June 1915, 16 February 1918.
• 16 WIT, 10 October 1914, 6 February 1915, 21 August 1915, 2 October 1915, 28 October 1916, 24 February (...)
• 17 It is possible that these parents were some of the minority of Irish Catholics who were unionists. (...)

3Given the Weekly Irish Times’s unionist editorial slant it is unsurprising that the majority of Granny’s wartime correspondents were Protestants. Most of these were members of the Church of Ireland, but children from all of the main Irish Protestant denominations wrote to Granny during the war.11 Some attended boarding school12 but most lived at home with their parents. Cross referencing correspondents’ biographical details in the children’s column with Irish census data reveals that children from the Protestant landed class or the wealthier sectors of Irish Protestant society rarely wrote to Granny.13 Some children of Church of Ireland and Presbyterian clergymen wrote to “Granny’s Corner” and “Young Folks’ Corner”,14 but the evidence suggests that most Protestant correspondents came from either white-collar, commercial or farming backgrounds. Some had more humble origins, such as fifteen-year-old Hilda Browne of Dublin, whose father was a railway guard, ten-year-old May Dougherty of Coolmoney, County Wicklow, whose father was a gardener and domestic servant, fourteen-year-old Thomas Gresham of Bray, whose father was a garden labourer, and fourteen-year-old Violet Eileen Waring of Regent Street, Belfast, whose father was a “Hall-Keeper”.15 Several of Granny’s correspondents were Catholics, many of whom were the sons and daughters of policemen.16 Letters from Catholic farmers’ children do not feature as frequently in the pages of Granny’s columns as those from Protestant farmers’ children, which probably reflects the Catholic rural community’s lack of interest in reading a unionist publication such as the Weekly Irish Times; nevertheless, letters from Catholic farmers’ children are not entirely absent, and Granny also published letters from children of Catholic shopkeepers, artisans and schoolteachers.17

• 18 WIT, 4 December 1915, 30 December 1916.
• 19 See letters published in WIT, 27 March 1915, 11 December 1915, 18 December 1915, 8 January 1916, 4  (...)
• 20 WIT, 12 February 1916. This under-age soldier was Corporal Arthur George Benson of the Royal Dublin (...)
• 21 WIT, 4 December 1915.
• 22 WIT, 29 September 1917.

4Many of Granny’s correspondents had close relatives serving in the armed forces. Fifteen-year-old Amy Baird of Ballynatray, County Cork, claimed in December 1915 that “[t]here is hardly one of us that has not a relation at the front”, an opinion which was echoed a year later by fourteen-year-old Julia Smith of The Grange, Kilmallock, when she expressed her surprise that people still “had a heart” to do Christmas shopping “when nearly every family has one or two of its members killed or still fighting”.18 While these opinions were exaggerated, nevertheless many of Granny’s “grandchildren” did indeed have loved ones who were wearing the king’s uniform.19 For example, four brothers of Evelyn Benson of Shinrone, King’s County, were serving in the British Army in East Africa, Gallipoli and Belgium in 1915. One of these was only fifteen years old when he enlisted, the same age as many of Granny’s correspondents.20 Twelve-year-old Gladys Costello of Clontarf, Dublin, had two soldier brothers: one, a despatch rider in the South Irish Horse, became a prisoner of war when he was captured whilst mending a puncture on his motor bicycle, while the other, serving in the Royal Artillery at Gallipoli, wrote to his sister to say he wished “that all the men in Dublin would enlist, for it’s well worth while, because there is plenty of excitement at the front, and most boys like that very much”.21 Many other correspondents wrote about their cousins serving in the armed forces. These included Carrie Patchell of Knader, County Donegal, a frequent contributor to the children’s column, who told Granny in September 1917 that one of her cousins had been killed in action a week previously: he was the fifth cousin that she lost during the war.22

• 23 WIT, 21 July 1917, 18 August 1917.
• 24 WIT, 29 August 1914, 2 December 1916. It is worth noting that Granny’s wish that all of her grandso (...)
• 25 WIT, 23 June 1917.

5Irrespective of whether or not Granny’s “grandchildren” had relatives serving in the armed forces, the war frequently featured in her young correspondents’ letters. This focus was partly influenced by Granny’s editorials, which often referred to the war. As early as 18 August 1914 she wrote: “[w]e are living under a terrible shadow – the shadow of war – and those among us who are not old enough or strong enough to go and fight for our country must do our best to help our nation at home”. One recommended way in which “even children” could help the war effort was by not wasting food, as “every ounce of food is precious to the country now”. On 17 February 1917 she repeated this message, asserting: “I am sure all my grandchildren will help by not at least wasting any bread, or meat, or sugar”. She also wrote that Irish children should cheerfully accept “minor trials” such as the shortage of sweets during the war, a sacrifice which paled in comparison to “the great discomforts our soldiers have to undergo”, while they should be thankful that Ireland was not subjected to such a “cold-blooded form of warfare” as “the dreadful air raids which England and France have had to endure”.23 As late as 1 June 1918 Granny stated again that Ireland was lucky to be free from German air raids, opining that “[e]ven the sugar restrictions may well be borne without grumbling when we imagine to ourselves what other countries are enduring, not forgetting that they are rationed in food also much more than we are”. Granny urged her readers to be proud of Irish soldiers cheerfully whistling and singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” as they made their way to the front, and stated her conviction that all of her “grandsons” would take their place in the trenches if they were old enough to enlist.24 She felt that the bravery of soldiers from the north and south of Ireland at Messines in June 1917 should be a particular source of pride to her readers.25

• 26 WIT, 27 February 1915, 3 July 1915, 2 October 1915, 23 October 1915.
• 27 For comments on how contributors to an Australian children’s newspaper column sometimes consciously (...)

6In addition to her war-themed editorials, several of Granny’s essay competitions were also on topics relating to the war. For example, on 12 December 1914 Granny asked her readers: “Tell me why you think it would be a mistake (as I am sure you do) to give up merry making this Christmas, in spite of the sad times we are passing through owing to this war”, while two weeks later she posed the question: “What do you think is the most difficult part of war to endure – constant danger, hard fighting and fatigue on the one hand, or inaction, cold, and waiting on the other?”. Her “grandchildren” were also asked to consider what they thought about spies in wartime, whether “our sailors or our soldiers” were having the hardest time in the war, whether it required more courage “to retreat fighting bravely, as the Russians are doing” or to attack a dangerous enemy position, and whether it was better to take precautions against air raids or to regard them as unavoidable dangers.26 While these questions produced some interesting answers, the unprompted letters that children wrote to Granny provide deeper insights into what their authors thought about the war. Unlike the essays which were scripted for a definite purpose – to win a prize – on topics that were suggested by Granny,27 the unprompted letters were written on subjects that were of more direct interest to the children who wrote them.

• 28 WIT, 19 December 1914.
• 29 WIT, 7 November 1914, 21 November 1914, 28 November 1914, 5 December 1914, 20 March 1915, 5 June 19 (...)
• 30 WIT, 19 February 1916.
• 31 WIT, 24 February 1917, 14 July 1917, 17 August 1918.
• 32 WIT, 18 March 1916.

7Many children were keen to describe their contributions to the war effort. As Pearl Scott, aged twelve, of Lisnalong, County Monaghan, explained in December 1914: “At present almost everybody is making or doing something to show their respect for the soldiers”.28 Knitting socks and gloves for British servicemen was a common girls’ activity.29 The girls in Carrie Patchell’s school in Donegal were especially productive in this regard, making some 1,000 pairs of socks between August 1914 and February 1916.30 Many children also collected and dried sphagnum moss for use as medical dressing, with some of the more productive participants in this nationwide effort, such as twelve-year-old Kathleen Warren of Geashill, King’s County, proudly recording that they received badges from the Irish War Hospital Supply Depot in Dublin.31 Others busied themselves in the National Egg Collection for wounded soldiers and sailors. Fourteen-year-old Louie Jones, a pupil in Cloyne National School, County Cork, and her fellow pupils collected fifteen dozen eggs in one week in March 1916. She explained: “When we saw that everyone was doing something for the wounded soldiers and those in the trenches we were glad when it came to our turn. We never gathered eggs before, and it was quite a change to knitting socks, gloves, scarfs, etc.”.32

• 33 WIT, 30 June 1917.
• 34 WIT, 28 April 1917.
• 35 WIT, 5 May 1917.
• 36 WIT, 16 February 1918, 23 March 1918, 13 April 1918, 29 June 1918.
• 37 WIT, 11 May 1918. A “Grow More Food” campaign was widely promoted in Ireland, which undoubtedly had (...)

8Some children, such as twelve-year-old Maureen Maguire from Oylgate, County Wexford, a policeman’s daughter, patriotically declined to have a party on their birthday, viewing birthday parties as “an unnecessary luxury” in wartime. Maureen explained that flour and sugar were in short supply, and that not eating bread made with imported flour was “helping to beat the Huns and their submarines” as it also meant “not giving them the pleasure of sending the foreign flour to the bottom of the sea”. She also stopped putting sugar on her breakfast porridge, making do with salt instead.33 It is likely that in taking this course of action she was responding to the well-publicised appeal by the Food Controller, Lord Devonport, urging people in the United Kingdom to consume less bread and thus reduce the country’s reliance on flour imports.34 Rose Nooney, aged fourteen, a shepherd’s daughter from Ardmoyle, County Tipperary, informed Granny in May 1917 that her family were “doing war economy owing to the scarcity of provisions”. This involved eating porridge daily for breakfast, except for Sundays when her family ate rashers and eggs as a treat.35 Several of Granny’s correspondents told her that they were helping to boost Ireland’s food supply by growing vegetables in allotments or in school gardens.36 This was a patriotic activity of which she approved, commenting in May 1918: “Owing to the war, I expect you will be quite good gardeners in a short time, so a little good may come out of all this evil”.37

• 38 WIT, 15 September 1917.
• 39 WIT, 5 June 1915.
• 40 WIT, 18 March 1916, 1 April 1916, 5 August 1916, 30 September 1916, 7 October 1916, 11 November 191 (...)
• 41 WIT, 30 September 1916, 11 November 1916.
• 42 WIT, 18 March 1916, 7 October 1916.

9The numerous Irish fund-raising efforts on behalf of war charities were also supported by Granny’s correspondents, including fourteen-year-old Eileen Plunkett of Susan Terrace in Dublin, who sold almost three hundred flags for the French Red Cross on one day in September 1917.38 Gracie Tector, aged fifteen, a farmer’s daughter from Clonroche, County Wexford, gave an interesting example of how she, two of her sisters, her brother and seven of her “little friends” staged a fund-raising entertainment in her father’s yard during the Easter holidays in 1915 on behalf of the British Red Cross. They sent to London for the scores and lyrics of Discontented Judith, a “rather sad” cantata, and the comic operetta Inspector for an Hour, rehearsed these acts every night for a month and erected a platform on which to perform. Gramophone music entertained the guests before the performance started, and Gracie’s elder sister played a piano at intervals, indications of the family’s well-to-do status. Approximately a hundred people attended. The entertainers also organised a jumble sale the next day, raising £2 7s between both events.39 Fourteen-year-old Louie Jones of Cloyne, thirteen-year-old Phyllis Pye of County Sligo, thirteen-year-old Daisy Deignan of Saintfield, fourteen-year-old Dorothy Lett of Cloyne, fourteen-year-old Olive Cunningham of Mount Lodge, Ballybay, eleven-year-old Cherry Williams of Woodfield, County Sligo, and twelve-year-old Fred Conboy of Kilkenny described their attendance at concerts and fêtes which raised money for the British Red Cross and servicemen’s comforts.40 Some of these events included war-themed amusements specifically aimed at children, such as “Knocking Down the Kaiser” at the fête in Lord Francis Hope’s Castleblayney demesne and “Popping the Kaiser” and “Breaking the Prussian Lines” at the Kilkenny Castle fête which Olive Cunningham and Fred Conboy attended, respectively.41 Children were also prominent actors in the concert held at the Lissadell House riding school in February 1916 and the garden fête held at Richard Edward O’Hara’s Newpark residence in County Sligo in September 1916, attended respectively by Phyllis Pye and Cherry Williams. In the former, children step-danced, sang patriotic songs and performed a play titled Hawthorn Glen; at the latter, Cherry Williams’s fellow schoolgirls sang two “action songs”, one the popular wartime ditty “Our Khaki Daddy”, with the girls saluting a Union Jack flag at the end of each verse, and the other titled “We Red Cross Nurses”, which the girls sang while dressed in nursing costumes.42 The evidence from Newpark is particularly interesting as it indicates that children from unionist backgrounds outside of Ulster continued to openly express their support for the war effort, at a time when nationalist enthusiasm for the war was declining significantly.

• 43 WIT, 10 March 1917.

Twelve-year-old Martha Cobbe of Ballylevin, King’s County, who suggested mending one’s schoolbooks, not losing pencils at school and not taking sugar in one’s tea as ways to help the war effort,43 was undoubtedly less imaginative than Lily Moore, but at least her recommendations had the merit of being options that her fellows could realistically adopt.

• 44 For some correspondents from Clontarf the events of the Easter Rising proved particularly exciting. (...)
• 45 WIT, 8 January 1916.
• 46 WIT, 27 March 1915.

11Although Granny often referred to the war as “awful” or “dreadful”, not all of her “grandchildren” fully agreed with her on this point. On the contrary, the war brought colour and excitement to many Irish children’s lives, as evidenced by the contents of numerous letters that were sent to Granny.44 Fifteen-year-old Gretta Drugan, a policeman’s daughter from Killenaule, candidly stated: “The present war turned up in good time to prevent people from getting weary with monotony: it was merely a new and sad form of variety, and one which will be kept alive in the minds of everyone, for big and little take a deep-set interest in it”.45 For some children such as fourteen-year-old Dorothy Fowler of Cork, the war provided an opportunity to commence a new hobby of collecting soldiers’ badges.46 Fifteen-year-old Bella Sargison of Stillorgan, Dublin, collected illustrations of military leaders and others connected with the Allied cause and used them to decorate her bedroom. She wrote to Granny:

• 48 WIT, 4 December 1915, 11 December 1915, 8 January 1916, 12 February 1916, 22 July 1916, 2 March 191 (...)
• 49 WIT, 18 December 1915.
• 50 WIT, 13 November 1915, 18 November 1916, 2 December 1916. Maggie Higgins was not alone in feeling a (...)

12Many children experienced the war vicariously, through reading vivid accounts from relatives and friends of conditions at the front (in spite of the military censorship of servicemen’s letters), or being told by servicemen on leave about their war experiences.48 Others read about the war in newspapers. Bella Sargison told Granny that her family jokingly dubbed her young brother “the War Lord”, such was his enthusiasm for reading news of the conflict.49 He was far from being unique in this regard. Granny stated on 5 June 1915 that she had received “[a] great many” letters from children expressing their horror and indignation at the sinking of the Lusitania, and it is likely that most of these formed their impressions of the event from reading about it in the press. It is also highly likely that the detailed letters that fourteen-year-old Maggie Higgins of Turloughmore, County Galway, wrote about Nurse Cavell “who was so foully murdered” in the “latest and worst of German crimes against womanhood”, that fifteen-year-old Kitty Hill of Rathmines, Dublin, penned about a typical day in the life of a despatch rider in France, and that nine-year-old Arthur McDowell of Letterkenny wrote about the “boy hero” John Cornwell, V.C., who was killed at the battle of Jutland, were shaped by a close reading of newspaper accounts of these subjects.50

• 51 It is possible that some of Granny’s correspondents were also consumers of British children’s novel (...)
• 52 WIT, 24 October 1914.
• 53 For example, an Irish Independent advertisement bragged that: “The ‘Irish Independent’ war map – th (...)
• 54 WIT, 31 October 1914.

13The children’s letters tell of other sources apart from newspapers that helped to inform them about the war.51 Thirteen-year-old Josephine Gray, a pupil at Alexandra School in Longford, told Granny about her school’s war map which helped the schoolchildren to follow events at the front.52 This may have been one of the many maps which Irish newspapers and other publishers produced during the war and which were marketed as educational tools in schools.53 Fifteen-year-old Annie Healy of Culleens, County Sligo, attended an entertainment in her school in October 1914 which was put on “for the purpose of purchasing shirts and socks for our brave Irish soldiers”, especially those from the Ballina district. The entertainment’s main part was a magic lantern show depicting “the many beautiful buildings which have been totally destroyed by the Germans”, as well as views of British and German cavalry.54 Janie Clark attended an entertainment in Cork City Hall, which consisted of a lecture accompanied by magic lantern pictures portraying the war in Belgium. It made a vivid impression on the fifteen-year-old:

• 56 WIT, 20 March 1915.
• 57 WIT, 16 December 1916.

Rose Nooney visited a local cinema (probably in Cashel) on 28 February 1915. A gramophone played various tunes including “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” while the audience took their seats, and before the main film was shown the viewers were treated to the standard fare of newsreel footage of wartime scenes, on this occasion consisting of Indian troops landing at Marseilles, Belgian soldiers and “some empty bottles of champagne left by the Germans after their retreat from a town in France”.56 Fifteen-year-old Isaac Notter of Goleen, County Cork, visited Cork Opera House and saw a display of numerous photographs of the battle of the Somme, including one of “an Irish and German officer lying dead on the parapet, with their bayonets thrust into each other’s side”, and another of a British soldier “carrying a wounded comrade of his own regiment under a hot fire from the enemy’s rifles and machine guns”.57

• 58 WIT, 22 May 1915, 18 December 1915.
• 59 WIT, 23 October 1915, 13 November 1915. For an account of the enthusiastic reception given to Somer (...)
• 60 WIT, 21 August 1915. For O’Leary’s celebrity status, see Cónal Creedon, The Immortal Deed of Michae (...)

14The war had an exciting impact on other Irish children through their attendance at recruiting meetings. This could be an entertaining experience, as shown in letters written by ten-year-old Mary Elizabeth Coffey of Galway and Bella Sargison of Stillorgan.58 Further excitement was derived from civic receptions which were organised to honour Irish winners of the Victoria Cross. Fourteen-year-old May Kathleen Nicholson of Dullerton, County Derry, spent an enjoyable day in Derry city at one such event in October 1915 which was held in honour of Sergeant James Somers, V.C. Fourteen-year-old Frances Chadwick of Foxburrow, King’s County, spent a “delightful day” shortly afterwards at a similar event which was held in Somers’s honour in his native village of Cloughjordan, County Tipperary.59 Janie Clark described the “great excitement” which prevailed when Michael O’Leary, V.C., paid a visit to Cork city in June 1915: “[…] everyone in Cork was around him trying to shake his hand, and everyone was kissing him”, she later recalled.60

• 61 WIT, 24 October 1914, 5 December 1914, 6 March 1915, 27 March 1915, 10 April 1915, 22 May 1915, 18  (...)
• 62 WIT, 14 November 1914.
• 63 WIT, 10 April 1915.

15Many of the letters sent to Granny detail how the lives of children who lived near military garrisons were enlivened by the influx of increased numbers of soldiers in them. Listening to army bands and watching the soldiers’ preparations for war were novel sources of diversion for the young correspondents.61 Gordon Hall, aged fourteen, explained that the arrival of large numbers of soldiers in Longford in October 1914 “caused great excitement” amongst the local population. He was so enthused by watching the soldiers making field kitchens that he made one for himself using an old basin and some tomato tins and used it to boil his cocoa.62 Fourteen-year-old Mabel Evans wrote about the establishment in Oldcastle of a detention camp for six hundred German and other enemy aliens in the town’s workhouse. The locals worried that “it would be all confusion” when the military arrived to guard the camp, but Mabel recorded with a sense of relief that they were “very nice and orderly”.63

• 64 WIT, 3 April 1915. The ship was the SS Atlanta, the first victim of a submarine attack off the west (...)
• 65 WIT, 1 January 1916. Young Hayes’s letter gives an indication of the anger felt by much of the Iris (...)
• 66 WIT, 10 February 1917.
• 67 WIT, 30 September 1916, 18 November 1916, 1 June 1918.
• 68 Belfast News-Letter, 2 September 1918; WIT, 14 September 1918.
• 69 WIT, 6 July 1918, 9 November 1918.

16The letters to Granny document other ways in which the war made its presence felt in Irish children’s lives. For instance, in April 1915 Mary Halloran, aged twelve, of Cloone, County Galway, told how the burned-out remains of a ship that had been recently torpedoed by a German submarine were towed to nearby Cleggan Bay, where they became a visitors’ attraction.64 Thirteen-year-old Jem Hayes penned a letter describing his summer holidays in Clonakilty in 1915. It was mostly an idyllic account, but in one passage he wrote that from the beach where he and his friends built sandcastles “could be seen the spot where the Lusitania was sunk. It made me feel sorry to look at that spot and think that twelve hundred persons were lying at the bottom of the ocean by the hands of the cowardly Germans”.65 In similar vein, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah Crowley of Drumcondra, Dublin, wrote about the pleasant countryside in west Cork where he spent his Christmas holidays in 1916: “Even the fact that a great war was raging would be forgotten amidst those peaceful surroundings, save for a grim torpedo boat which was engaged in patrolling the coast”.66 Frank Cole of Kilkenny, aged twelve, recorded seeing a British airship when he was holidaying in Tramore – “It was a great sight to me, because I never saw one in my life before” – as well as a patrol boat in the harbour. Eleven-year-old Florrie Malone of Mountmellick saw a large airship flying over Grafton Street when she and her family went on a day trip to Dublin, while Dubliner Eddy Rossiter, aged fourteen, reported seeing three aeroplanes flying over the capital in a single day.67 Eight-year-old May Cobbe of Ballylevin wrote about the “great excitement” of the crowd attending the Tullamore horse show in August 1918 when a Royal Air Force (RAF) aeroplane flew low around the venue several times, scattering leaflets encouraging recruitment to the armed forces.68 Some youngsters were lucky enough to see RAF machines up close. Paddy Raftery of Ballinasloe, aged thirteen, and some of his friends spent over an hour watching mechanics fix the engine of an aeroplane that landed in a bog a few miles from Paddy’s home, while twelve-year-old Benjamin Chambers of Coolbanagher, Queen’s County, spent several hours watching repairmen working on an aeroplane (guarded by a picquet of Scottish soldiers from Maryborough) that landed in his father’s meadow in May 1918. He reported that “great excitement” prevailed in the locality as most of the people had never seen an aeroplane on the ground before, and that “[a]ll this time people were coming from all directions to see the machine, and the day was made a general holiday”.69

• 70 Sarah-Anne Buckley, Susannah Riordan, “Childhood since 1740”, in The Cambridge Social History of Mo (...)

17It has been pointed out recently that one of the methodological problems confronting historians of childhood is that “children are less likely than adults to have created records that have been preserved and, where they are extant, these sources may elude analysis by the modern adult”.70 This article illustrates the usefulness to the historian of a distinctive type of record – children’s letters to the press – for understanding Irish children’s thoughts about their experiences during the First World War. While the focus here is on children from mainly unionist backgrounds, it is hoped that in the future an examination can be made of nationalist newspaper columns in order to identify similarities and differences in how nationalist children responded to the war. This will not only deepen our understanding of the Irish home front during the conflict but also help to further situate the Irish child’s wartime experience in an international and transnational context.