Ireland and the Great War - Life in the Trenches

Life in the Trenches and Behind the Lines

Rats, lice, duckboards, incoming shells, raids, snipers, the fear of entombment, the smell of death from no mans land and the occasional seven day furlough.

"We weren't living in the sense of the word, it was just punishment"

Jack Campbell tells Gay Byrne what it was like in the trenches. He recalls his fear going over the top, how soldiers often went hungry and the danger of rats.

Seven shillings a week

Denis Kelly describes the conditions endured by the troops in return for seven shillings a week. The supply of rations and reinforcements to the front lines was often disrupted by shell-fire, which meant that the soldiers went hungry. Cigarettes, however, were plentiful.

"I twice woke up under water"

Colonel E. H. de Stacpool talks about how hard it was to keep the water out of the trenches in Flanders, which was prone to flooding.

Mules for wine

During wartime, extreme measures were sometimes undertaken by light-fingered troops who wanted to sample the local wines, as Major Walter Joyce of the Irish Guards tells Jim Fahy.

Soldiers robbed behind own lines

The local women were another attraction, though the unwary soldier could find himself in some trouble for straying out of bounds.