The Project Gutenberg EBook of O'Flaherty V. C., by George Bernard Shaw

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Title: O'Flaherty V. C.

Author: George Bernard Shaw

Posting Date: February 15, 2009 [EBook #3484]
Release Date: October, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Eve Sobol

O'FLAHERTY V.C.: A RECRUITING PAMPHLET

By George Bernard Shaw

It may surprise some people to learn that in 1915 this little play was
a recruiting poster in disguise. The British officer seldom likes Irish
soldiers; but he always tries to have a certain proportion of them in
his battalion, because, partly from a want of common sense which leads
them to value their lives less than Englishmen do [lives are really
less worth living in a poor country], and partly because even the most
cowardly Irishman feels obliged to outdo an Englishman in bravery if
possible, and at least to set a perilous pace for him, Irish soldiers
give impetus to those military operations which require for their
spirited execution more devilment than prudence.

Unfortunately, Irish recruiting was badly bungled in 1915. The Irish
were for the most part Roman Catholics and loyal Irishmen, which means
that from the English point of view they were heretics and rebels. But
they were willing enough to go soldiering on the side of France and
see the world outside Ireland, which is a dull place to live in. It was
quite easy to enlist them by approaching them from their own point of
view. But the War Office insisted on approaching them from the point of
view of Dublin Castle. They were discouraged and repulsed by refusals to
give commissions to Roman Catholic officers, or to allow distinct
Irish units to be formed. To attract them, the walls were covered with
placards headed REMEMBER BELGIUM. The folly of asking an Irishman to
remember anything when you want him to fight for England was apparent to
everyone outside the Castle: FORGET AND FORGIVE would have been more
to the point. Remembering Belgium and its broken treaty led Irishmen to
remember Limerick and its broken treaty; and the recruiting ended in
a rebellion, in suppressing which the Br