Ireland’s Memorial Records at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral

The Cathedral possess a copy of Ireland’s Memorial Records. This eight volume book commemorates and preserves the memory of the thousands of Irishmen who died during World War One and it lists the  49,647 individuals who fell in the Great War. The edition on display here was published in 1923, one of only 100 published at the time. This book features beautiful illustrations by the celebrated artist Harry Clarke, some examples of these can be seen  on this page.

These records are unique: not only do they record the names, rank, regiment, date of death and regimental number of the dead, but in many cases a soldier’s place of birth. These provide a valuable insight into the loss of life caused by the war. Historians’ estimates of the number of Irish men and women who died during this war vary from 30,000 – 50,000. From the records contained in this book, 30,986 soldiers had declared Ireland as their country of birth. The remaining 11,000 listed their places of birth as Britain, Europe, America, Canada and the rest of the world, but considered themselves of Irish heritage, or they were part of an Irish regiment. Every county in Ireland lost men in World War One. Ireland’s Memorial Records list 4,800 men from Dublin. The majority of the dead were young men and each recorded name commemorates a life ended prematurely and violently, and a family left bereaved.

These records have now be digitised and are now live below,