Public Affairs

The road to the Somme

Author and playwright Philip Orr talks to Owen McQuade about local involvement in the battle of the Somme and its importance for unionism over the last 100 years.

As is often the case, Philip Orr’s interest in the Battle of the Somme came from an interest in his family history. “I remember as a young boy seeing a picture on a wall in the shadows of the landing in my grandmother’s house that was of my great uncle who fought with the Ulster Division in the Great War and had gone through the Battle of the Somme,” reminisces Orr. He was then teaching English and drama in the 1980s – not history as he points out – and in order to make the course on the First World War poets more interesting he thought of interviewing one of the survivors of the war. He discovered a good friend of his great uncle who had gone to war with him and survived and was then living in Crossgar, County Down. He interviewed the veteran twice and found it to be “a mind blowing experience – the intricate details of being a stretcher bearer. Just the horror and the vividness of his accounts. He said to me that after doing the interviews he wouldn’t sleep at night because he would hear the sounds of the guns, even decades later.”

Orr found that the taped interview enriched the studies of the young people and he felt there was much more to this story. In that pre-internet era, he wrote letters to the local papers to stimulate interest and gave his details for anyone interested to contact him. As a result he did more interviews and his interest then shaped into a book project. He also acquired interviews from other sources and delved into the museum archives. “What was interesting was that although there was some interest in the Somme, most of the story was lying under dust. There were photographs that were brought out of cupboards and letters and diaries of men who had written detailed accounts and none of this was in the public domain,” he explains. “It was a story in theory that was well known but in practice it wasn’t”.

In 1997 Orr approached local publisher Blackstaff and ‘The Road to the Somme’ was published in November of that year. The book was based on the men’s accounts and was subtitled ‘the men of the Ulster Division tell their story’.

“That was the important thing for me. There is an official account of the 36th Ulster Division and although it is a good quality account it wasn’t in ordinary soldiers’ voices. That is what is really interesting. What made them go to war? How did they deal with all the horror? How did it affect them afterwards? Were they left with lasting trauma? How did those physically injured handle it? These things all intrigued me greatly.” The book has since sold very well with a second edition published five years ago which included another chapter “as the whole story has grown since.”  

Founding narrative

“The Somme story was an important narrative in the founding of Northern Ireland. The Easter Rising played that role for the Irish Free State in the 1920s,” says Orr.

“The Somme story was important for unionism. It was a token of loyalty, loyalty spilt in blood and a whole bunch of war memorials went up that tended to emphasise the unionist side of the story. The emphasis was on the Battle of the Somme rather than the vast diverse range of other soldiers from nationalist backgrounds who fought everywhere from Gallipoli to the Battle of Jutland in the naval campaign.” 

The Somme was chosen as an important story back then because most of the 36th Ulster Division on the first day of the Battle of the Somme would have had an Ulster Volunteer Force background and would have signed the Ulster Covenant. “It was a very resonant symbol,” adds Orr. 

By the 1960s, interest in the Battle of the Somme had waned to some degree.

July 1966, the fiftieth anniversary, “saw the old veterans that were still around march, the Queen was here and some veterans went over to France. It was still an important day but that was about it.” This contrasts to the thousands that make annual “pilgrimages” to the Somme, especially loyalists. “In the loyalist community, and I use that term very broadly, pilgrimages to the battlefields are incredibly important.” Although the increase in people travelling to France is partly due to cheaper air fares and the general increase in interest in genealogy, “it is much more than any of that.” Orr says that the Battle of the Somme now matters so much for a number of reasons. When he speaks to community groups he hears comments that the type of history that people were taught in schools “was about Julius Caesar, Napoleon or Elizabeth I and it had nothing to do with us.”  

“The Somme story creates a people’s history for many communities. You find out what your grandfather or great grandfather did, or people in your street and you can follow the story to France. It is an emotional story and a powerful one. For unionism and loyalism, which is in many ways has been on the back foot in recent years, it has been about struggling with how Britishness is construed in London as opposed to how it is seen here. In that context going over to the battlefields and feeling yourself as part of a bigger story is important. It is a story that is reassuring and strengthening and that explains the growing interest.”  

Orr believes that the narrative of the Battle of the Somme has changed and is continuing to change. “Inside nationalism and republicanism, north and south, there is a renewed interest about the First World War story. It isn’t about claiming Britishness but more things like: Why did my grandfather go and fight? Was it about poverty? A tradition in the family? The story after WWI was taken over by unionists in the north. In Dublin they were trying to create a new society with a post-colonial story so you don’t want stories of fighting for Britain to take a strong role. The narratives for the new state were the Easter Rising and the War of Independence. That has now opened up with things like the Connaught Rangers Association in West Belfast with nationalists bringing out these stories. One unionist has referred to the greening of WWI. In a way the story is diversifying, opening out and getting more complex – in the way stories ought to be with different threads.”

Although very clear on the importance of the role of the Somme narrative for unionists, Orr sounds a note of caution. Remembering the battle where people lost their lives in large numbers is perhaps not that good a paradigm. He has also written a book on the Battle of Gallipoli called ‘Field of Bones’ – “where almost as many Irishmen died as at the Somme” – as seen in the current debate about the suitability of the Gallipoli founding story for a modern Australia. “Like the story of the Somme it is a male story with no women and alone it doesn’t support our sense of democracy.”  

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