New archive tells stories of ordinary volunteers in Easter Rising

The myriad of personal stories contained in the Military Service Pensions Collection will open a new window on the 1916 to 1923 period in Irish history.

The collection has been published this evening on militaryarchives.ie Many of the prominent leaders of the independence movement describe their activities in great detail in their pension applications but the real treasures in the collection are the stories of ordinary volunteers and civilians caught up in the tide of history.

It will take years for historians and researchers to mine the 300,000 files contained in the archive. They include all of the 82,000 pension applications even though only 15,700 of them were successful....