Based in Dublin Mr Higgs of the Royal Irish Rifles recalls attempts to recruit men to the British army, the funerals of Irish men killed at the front and the sight of a cycling squad of Irish Volunteers on Easter Monday 1916.
Mr Higgs was a 19 year old bands man with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles stationed in Dublin at the start of the First World War. The duties of the band of the Royal Irish Rifles included attending recruiting days and taking part in the funerals of Irish men who had been killed during the First World War. Mr Higgs says that despite the British army using ex service men and the first Irish man to win a Victoria Cross, Michael O'Leary, recruiting had not been going well.
We went out to Lucan. That became a fiasco nobody turned up. We went down to Brittas and we done another meeting there and that kind of fizzled out again.
The band also took part in military funerals of Irish men serving in the British Army who had been killed fighting in the First World War.
On Easter Monday 1916 near noon Mr Higgs was with a party who had been on funeral duty and were returning to barracks from Glasnevin Cemetery. Near the Guinness brewery a group of Irish Volunteers cycled past them.
Some of them had bandoliers and these tammies you see and they didn't look right as an ordinary cycling squad. And they kept their noses to the grindstone never looked left or right and went straight through.
Mr Higgs was interviewed during the production of 'Ireland A Television History' on 27 June 1979.
| Title: | Ireland A Television History Private Higgs |
| Clip Duration: | 00:08:46 |
| Material Type: | Video |
| Clip Title: | "They Didn't Look Right As An Ordinary Cycling Squad" |
| Series Title: | Ireland A Television History Interviews |
| Information: | Ireland A Television History was a 13 part series written and presented by Robert Kee looking at the complexities of Irish history. The series chronicles Ireland's development from pre-Christian times to the 1980s, with a specific emphasis on the creation of the modern independent Republic and the roots of the Troubles. 'Ireland a Television History', a BBC production was broadcast on RTÉ and BBC at the same time. In an article for the RTÉ Guide, Kee was asked is the series aimed at a British audience? He replied, "No it's aimed at those (mainly in Britain) who are less familiar with the subject than they ought to be; and at those (in Ireland, North and South) who think they know but don't". |
| Local Keywords: | 1916, Easter Rising, Easter 1916, Rising, British Army, British Soldiers |
| Coverage: | Ireland |
| Genre: | Factual |
| Topic: | Wars and Conflict |
| Provider: | RTÉ |
| Contributor(s): | Robert Kee (Interviewer) |
| Publisher: | RTÉ |
| Production Year: | 1979 |
| Country of Production: | England |
| Original Identifier: | DF220 |
| IPR Restrictions: | Rights Reserved - Free Access |
| Rights, Terms and Conditions: | Copyright RTÉ. This material may not be replicated in any form or manner without the prior express permission of RTÉ. Any form of reproduction in print, television, video, multimedia, web site or other electronic media or any form of dissemination for commercial or non-commercial use must be licensed by the RTÉ Archives.
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| Item Type: | part/extract |
| Colour: | Colour |
| Sound: | Mono |
| Aspect Ratio: | 4:3 |
| Language: | English (eng) |
