Hostile Homecoming for Irish veterans

This story is taken from an interview with Noel Cullen at the Dublin WW2 Commemoration, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was Claire Small, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
====

The men in ROI were volunteers. No conscription for them, no call-up papers — they volunteered. They got the boat from here, they joined up and they did it for the right reason. They felt that “Okay, there’s a problem here, it’s going to affect us down the road, we’d better do something now.”
For somebody to sign on the dotted line in Wartime, not in Peacetime, knowing that their life is on the line, and they might pay with their life, that’s a big decision to make.

There was [antagonism].
There’s not a house in Dublin that wasn’t affected by the First World War. But after that event, people was afraid to say “my father, my brother, was in the British Army”.

This went on into the 50s. I served in the 60s, and when I came home it wasn’t too bad.
And then it came the 70s, and the same thing happened again. The lads in my regiment, the Irish Guards, came home.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.