Book Six: Rising and War, 1907 to 1918

The years, 1907 to 1918

Delia Gallagher writes on into adulthood, still to her cousin Sean Ryan in New York, as the wider world forces its way into both their households.

The old age pension. From January 1909 the state paid its first old age pensions, and for the elderly poor of the west it was a quiet revolution, a few shillings that meant dignity. Michael, Delia's father, is among the first in the parish to claim.

The Great War and the Somme. When war came in 1914, Irishmen enlisted in their thousands. The Home Rule that had finally passed that September was shelved for the duration. At the Somme in 1916, Irish regiments were cut down in numbers the letters can hardly hold, and the names came home one by one.

The Easter Rising. In April 1916 a rising in Dublin was put down within a week, and its leaders were executed that May. The shootings turned public feeling as nothing else could, and the fireside itself was divided. Then, in the autumn of 1918, the Spanish flu reached the parish, and the Armistice came stained with grief.

The family in these years

Delia's letters carry an ordinary parish pulled into extraordinary times: a neighbour enlisting and her fear for him, the shock and split feeling after the executions, the dread of the flu at the door. She writes to keep a thread of home intact for a cousin in New York whose own country is now at war too. In the hardest year, the letters matter most.

Moments from the twelve letters

• January 1909. The first old age pensions paid, and Michael among the first to claim his.
• March 1915. A Ballycastle man enlists, and Delia's letter carries all her fear for him.
• May 1916. The Rising and the executions, and the divided feeling at the family's own fireside.
• October 1918. The Spanish flu reaching Ballycastle, and a household holding its breath.

Your county in Book Six

The O'Donnells are the Mayo edition. Each county's edition carries its own enlistments and losses at the front, and its own experience of the Rising, because 1914 to 1918 fell differently on every county. See how the county personalisation works.