How does an Irish loyalist become a British officer

[chasminor]

Thanks for your help-- I'm trying to understand what motivations were there for a boy born and raised in Birkenhead in the mid 1930s of immigrant parents with roots and connections in the Irish Unionist/Loyalist community to become an officer in the British forces after being conscripted upon finishing school in his early 20s? And how might his Birkenhead family and neighbors have felt about him doing that?  Thanks again.

[chasminor]

Sorry, I didn't mean Irish Unionist/Loyalists. I meant to ask how does a person who grew up in Birkenhead in a family atmosphere of Irish Republican /Nationalist thinking become a British officer?

[Andy J2022]

When you say he was born and raised in the 1930s I'm not clear about when he served in the Army. Presumably this was during National Service in the 1950s? When you say he finished school in his early 20s I assume this means that he went to university. If that is so he didn't have much choice about the National Service bit. As for going into the Army and getting commissioned, perhaps he went to a school with an ACF or CCF, and so he had some early military experience which made him more suitable for the Army rather than, say, the RAF. Then a good (university?) education plus some cadet experience would have marked him out as possible officer material. Since the Irish Nationalists such as the IRA were not particularly active during the 1950s his political background is unlikely to have been an issue, assuming the Army even knew about it.

I doubt if it would have caused any real problems with his family. They can't have been that anti-British if they were living and working in Birkenhead. He was most likely to have found himself deployed to Malaya, Borneo, Aden or West Germany where his political leanings wouldn't have posed a dilemma for him. It would have been a very different situation had he been serving after 1969.

[Elwyn Soutter]

The relationship between the UK and Ireland has always been complex and I think it’s simplistic to assume that just because someone supported an Independent Ireland they were therefore necessarily totally anti-British. Why move to England for work if you felt so strongly about it? If your ancestor joined up as an Officer he must have been pretty well motivated towards the UK. He wouldn’t have done that otherwise.

But a good example of the complex relationship between the two countries comes from the 2013 amnesty for Irish Army deserters. In 1939, when Ireland had only been an independent country for 17 years and had a small army, WW2 started. Ireland remained neutral and so their army had no involvement. About one third of that Irish army deserted and joined the British armed forces, to fight against the Germans. So, although they had been fighting for an independent Ireland for hundreds of years, these men were still willing to fight for Britain against the Germans. That’s how they felt.

On their return to Ireland from war in 1945 they were treated as deserters (which they were) and denied Irish pensions and jobs. Many had a difficult time, even though they had shown great bravery. It was 2013 before the Irish Government had a re-think and gave the dwindling numbers of survivors an amnesty and a military pension.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22425684

To this day some Irish citizens join the British army (as opposed to the Irish Defence Forces). Two I saw interviewed a year or two back said they did so “to get a bit of action” because the Irish Defence Forces normally only ever do peace keeping work.

[MollyC]

When the WW2 began some wise souls in Ireland probably realised that if Hitler managed to invade Great Britain, Ireland would be next.