There is very interesting collection of letters in the National Archive in Bishop’s Street relating to various appeals to the Taoiseach relating to Army Pensions. While researching pension applications I found that political persuasion had no bearing on weather the pension was granted or not, the pensions board had a set of criteria which had to be met (this was adhered to rigorously for every application) and if the applicant met the criteria they got the pension.
According to the pension’s board records there were nearly 150,000 applications for pensions of which about 10 percent were granted, it is also worth noting that about 1500 medals with COMRAC bar were awarded. With 9 out of every 10 applicants being refused a pension it is understandable why you hear so many stories of pensions being refused to what appeared to be deserving causes.
There are other interesting patterns shown in the pension applications. Pensions were given to members of Flying Columns, members of Active Service Unites rarely succeeded in getting a pension. The vast majority of applications from Anti Treaty IRA were received after the 1934 Army Pensions Act (Dev came into power in 1932). Many Anti Treaty refused to apply for a pension from the Free State Government, if you every get a chance to read the files in Bishop’s Street there are some very interesting letters to Dev relating to this, there is a letter from a woman whose husband refused to apply for a pension from the Free State Government and she goes on to complain they were finding it hard to survive on his British Army pension.
