Co. Kildare and World War I

World War I, which began on 28 July 1914 and ended on 11 November 1918, resulted in over sixteen million military and civilian deaths. During this time, Iireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and service in the British Army had been a tradition in many families for many generations. Around 210,000 Irishmen served in the British Armed Forces during World War I, of whom circa 30,000 died.

The Co. Kildare Decade of Commemorations Committee supported the publication of Remembrance: The World War I dead of Co. Kildare in 2021. This book contains the biographical details of servicemen and some non-combatants who died, and who were born or lived in County Kildare for an extended period of time before the war. At the time of printing it had been established that 750 men and three women from County Kildare died between the outbreak of the war in August 1914 and the official date of the end of the war as 31 August 1921.

Individuals have since supplied further names and eight men have been added to the list. A complete updated list can be found below entitled The World War I dead of Co. Kildare updated November 2021.

Dr. Barbara Walsh has researched the lives of women during the war and published a book on Irish Servicewomen in World War I:From Western Front to the Roaring Twenties in 2020. It tells the stories of the volunteers who serve both at home and on the Western Front in the newly founded Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, which young women from every province of Ireland joined along with those from homes in Scotland, England and Wales. She has provided a biographical list of Kildare women in the First World War below.