The women’s volunteer army that kept Irishmen clothed and fighting fit on the western front

IT was October 1914, two months after the outbreak of the Great War.

The civilian voluntary effort to support the Irish troops at home and at the front was co-ordinated by a joint executive committee of people from the British Red Cross Society’s Co Dublin branch and the Irish district of the St John Ambulance Association.

This joint committee co-ordinated the voluntary work in the provinces of Leinster, Munster and Connacht. Ulster’s voluntary committee decided to operate separately.