Free State Military Losses

Starting in 1924, the National Graves Association has published the The Last Post detailing all Republican deaths from 1916 onwards. Until 2019, there was no single compendium of National Army casualties until the publication of The forgotten fallen by James Langton. This chapter is a detailed analysis of the National Army casualties over a five-month period, focusing upon three key aspects: the types of deaths, geographic ‘hotspots’ with high losses and the impact of casualties upon recruitment. This timeframe was deliberately chosen so that military losses could be directly compared to military recruitment using the Irish Army Census returns. How soldiers were killed is an area that deserves specific focus due to the large numbers of personnel killed in a variety of accidents or non-combat situations. Some of these accidents are friendly fire incidents, while others may be suicides not recorded as such, either due to lack of evidence or to help ensure that dependents were able to apply for pensions. Despite the National Army being operationally active across the territory of the Free State, the majority of deaths occurred in a small number of areas within counties, typically concentrated in Munster, Leinster and the western seaboard of Connaught.