Using This Site

What wars are included?

The memorials included are those on the island of Ireland to men and women who served in all wars and conflicts, anywhere in the world, up to 1969. Also included are memorials to members of the armed forces who died on active service, even if not during a war (for example, members of the Irish Defence Forces killed on service with the United Nations) and civilians who were killed during a war.

What memorials are included?

All memorials commemorating those who died on active service or as a result of conflict are included, whether the death was in action, as a result of wounds or disease, or as a result of an accident. Also, ‘Rolls of Honour’, which list members of the community who served in a war and survived. As a result, many persons who did not die in a war are included. Note that civilians such as nurses, police and bomb victims may appear on memorials.

Memorials include plaques, free-standing monuments such as crosses, obelisks or statues, and also paper records where these are on display. Some memorials include lists of names, often with much information concerning the persons named, but some refer to groups without individual names.

Graves are not included in this inventory, nor are memorials to military persons who did not die on active service.

The aim of the present survey is to record an inventory of memorials on the island of Ireland. Those in Northern Ireland are also recorded in a similar inventory, the United Kingdom Inventory of War Memorials (see the link on the “Useful links” page).

What information is given here?

In general, only what is actually written on the memorial is recorded here. This includes the full text of the inscription, including all the names listed. The regiment or unit to which the person belonged (if recorded on the memorial or if known from an entry in a book) is added in abbreviated form, to allow a search for all members of, say, a particular regiment. Details of the site of the memorial are provided, and photographs of it, together with a typed transcription of the entire inscription. These are in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format, as not all of the fonts used will be on every computer. Some of the inscriptions are in Irish, and translations into English are provided.

The persons database includes the following information:

1. The name of the person, as given on the memorial itself.
2. Which conflict was involved.
3. The regiment or service in which the person served, in abbreviated form. This information comes either from the memorial, or from an entry in a book concerning the person. It is not available in many cases. To understand the abbreviation, see the “Regiments” page.
4. Where the memorial is. The addresses of the sites (mainly churches) are provided, and map references to locate them exactly. The “Places” page allows a search by county or town. If anyone wishes for further information in order to visit a site, this will be provided on request.
5. The full text of each memorial, which often includes much more information about individuals, is on the information document to be found, in PDF format, with each memorial. In many cases, references to books which contain further information are added to these documents.

Persons. The names of all those commemorated are to be found in the “Persons” database, which can be searched for individual names.

Regiments. The names of the regiments are given, and link to the persons and memorials. Note that some regiments changed names from time to time, or amalgamated (e.g. Royal Field, Garrison and Horse Artillery became the Royal Artillery). Some regiments had several names (e.g several regiments coming under ‘Royal Fusiliers’, or the East Kent Regiment being known as the Buffs). In World War II, all new recruits to the British air force entered the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, but may be recorded as members of the R.A.F. Members of overseas forces are recorded all together, e.g. Australian, New Zealand and U.S.A. regiments.

In many instances, a person is shown as having been in more than one regiment or service (e,g, RFA RFC). In this case, alphabetic sorting will be by the first-named regiment. A search using Control-F will be necessary to find any extra members of a regiment or service.

If a regiment or service does not appear on this list, it means that no member has yet been found on the memorials surveyed to date.

Books. Many of the persons named are mentioned in books. Those which give biographical detail, some with photographs, are listed on the information document which accompanies each memorial.

The books referred to are mainly published lists of casualties and rolls of honour, or histories of civilian institutions such as schools or companies which list those who served.

Other useful sources, not included here, are regimental histories, and books dealing with particular campaigns or battles. There is also the multi-volume “Ireland’s Memorial Records”, now available on CD from www.eneclann.ie.
Addresses. The addresses of the sites of the memorials are given, and the map references. This information is also given on the “Text of the memorial” document which accompanies every memorial.

Photographs. To see a photograph of a site or a memorial, click on the thumbnail which first appears. When you click on the link “See larger image”, another version of the photograph will appear in a new window. Enlarge this window to full screen to see the image enlarged. In some cases it can be made even larger by moving the cursor to the lower right corner of the image, and clicking on the icon which appears there.

What's new

To see the 15 most recently added sites, click on the ‘Recently added’ tab at the top of the page.

How to search

To search for a person, click on ‘Search by Persons’.

Type the ‘surname, initial of forename (e.g. byrne, j)’ in the ‘Name’ box; either upper or lower case may be used. Do NOT put a full stop (period) after the initial.

Then click on ‘Go’.

If too many names appear, try using the full forename rather than the initial, and searching again. However, someone named on more than one memorial may have the full name on one, and only the initial on another, so review of the entire list may still be necessary. Also, of course, some names apply to more than one person (e.g. Byrne, J.)

Another way of searching is to click on the ‘Name beginning with’ box and scroll down to the initial letter of the surname, and then click on ‘Go’. This will produce a long list, especially with ‘M’ or ‘O’, so use Control-F to search the first 250 names. Click on ‘Next’ at the bottom of the page to see the next 250, and so on.

To search for members of a particular regiment or service,

first go to the “Regiments, etc.” page, and scan down the list of regiments and services. Click on the name of the regiment, and a list of members named on memorials will appear. Note the problem with persons who were in more than one regiment, described under “What information is given here”, above.

To search for the involvement of members of a particular regiment or service in a particular war

(e.g. Members of the South Wales Borderers in the Second Boer War), go to the ‘Persons’ search page and leave the person’s name field blank. Use the menus to set the name of the regiment and the war in their fields, and click on ‘Go’.

To search for a particular place or monument,

go to the “Places” page. The list can be sorted by county or date added. Follow the link to see the memorial and the text of the inscription. This page can also be used to see what has been added since you last visited, by sorting by “Date added”.

To see all memorials to a particular war,

go to the “Wars” page. Click on the war of interest, and you will see a list of all the memorials to that war or conflict. Since many memorials commemorate several wars, these memorials will appear when each of those wars is selected.

May I copy the information?

Feel free to copy anything on this site, including the photographs. If they are to be used in any publication or website, acknowledgement would be appreciated.

Where can I get further information?

On the “Useful links” page there are some web-sites where further information may be found. Foremost among these is the site of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which has details of the grave, or memorial on the battlefield, of almost all of those in the British and Empire/Commonwealth forces who died in the two world wars. The list of web-sites is certainly not complete. There are many other web-sites concerning regiments, services, and military history which may be helpful in providing more information.

How can I contribute?

If you can add a record of a memorial to the inventory, please do so. Click on “How to contribute” in the menu at the top of the page to find information about this.

All contributions which are suitable will be added to the website, and the senders will be acknowledged. All of the data collected is to be passed on to the National Museum for permanent preservation.

If there are any queries, please send an e-mail through the “Feedback” page.

Who is doing this?

The Inventory is being run by Michael Pegum, who lives in Dublin. Many other contributors have recorded memorials. The information document for each memorial bears the name of the contributor.