ERIN'S NEW ARMY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15998, 17 August 1915, Page 4

ERIN'S NEW ARMY.

FINE IRISH DIVISION.

MEN EAGER FOR BATTLE.

There is at this moment, in its tents somewhere in the South of England, trained to the highest point-, like a lean and eager greyhound, awaiting the order for the front, an Irish army, commanded by a distinguished Irish general ; the first time in British history such a force has ever assembled, says a writer in the London Daily Chronicle of July 1.

This is the " th Irish Division." there have been Irieh troops always in the British Army in great numbers, as to-day : and sometimes, when the proportion of the population was different, even in predominant number. But hitherto as now at the front—their unit has been the regiment. This is the first time an Jrish unit has been kept together as a division.

.Few peop'e in Great Britain or in Ireland have realised this fact. Still less the , fact that, in the opinion of competent military authorities, this division, which has ' been inspected by the King and Lord Kitchener since it removed to England, is one of the finest-certainly there is none finer-in the first Kitchener army. The fact has not readied the public imagination —it had no chance of doing so. Following a policy whicff was no doubt a considered one, and which has not been applied to this portion of the new army alone, the existence of this division has been kept a sort of secret from the people. The Ulster Division has been heard of; so has another Irish division, which, after much delay and misunderstanding, was authorised at the instance of Mr. Redmond ; but scarcely anvthing has been said of this division, which an Irish general went to Ireland to raise and organise in the first fortnight of the war. Trained for Ten Months. Trained for the past ten months in different depots in Irelandthe Curragh, Birr, Longford, and othersit was some weeks ago brought to England for divisional training without a regiment, pipers playing and green flag flying, being marched through the streets of Dublin. No opportunity was given to the Irish public for a stirring send-off nor to the English public for a welcome—which would also have had its effect—to those gallant troops. I confess to a thrill as an Irishman j when I first stood in one of the camps i of this division. What I saw there ' will fairly stand for a picture of the i rest. The camp is pitched on the J shoulder of a verdant hill surrounded ! by the deep greenery of woods in a beautiful rolling country. The is a very distinguished regimentthe senior regiment in point of age of the division, a sort of guards corps, with little "privileges" like those of the guards, such as the privilege of marching through London with bayonets fixed. The sth Battalion is a " pioneer" corps. Its colonel is the descendant of the man who raised the regiment originally. Like his ancestor, he raised this battalion himself at Lord Kitchener's request. Those very fields of Flanders on which the have been winning new laurels today are the same on which they first achieved fame. All Classes United. These things ran through my mind as I s£ood on the broad main avenue of the canvas streets of the camp, and watched the stalwart sun-burnt Tipperary men and Cork men in the pink of " fitness," who have accepted the honour of representing Ireland's military prowess in the greatest war for liberty and nationality the world has seen.

Catholic and Protestant, Nationalist and Imperialist, rich men and poor men, they represent the mingled skein of race and circumstance, of which the Irish nation must be wrought. All have given up something to answer the high call they felt. Some leave behind pleasant estates, some have come back many thousand miles.

May fortune follow their gay and fearless green flags, and may very many of them come back to confound the base !