Military service pensions for the dependants of deceased combatants of the Irish Revolution and Civil War in Northern Ireland

Soon after the Irish Civil War (1922–3), the Irish Free State government introduced the first Army Pensions Act (1923). This act compensated the dependants of deceased republican combatants of the 1916 Easter Rising and War of Independence (1919–21) and those of National Army soldiers during the civil war. In Northern Ireland, the government’s hostility towards republicanism complicated the development and adjudication of military service pension claims and imbued the process with considerable personal risk. This article, drawing on 237 dependant pension files from Northern Ireland, centres on the practical and subjective experience of the pension claim process that was, for many, characterised by complications and the threat of state interference that weighed heavily on claimants. It further examines the ad hoc character of the dependant claim assessment process in the north and what dependant letters — underpinned by economic and political grievances — reveal about their attitudes to life in Northern Ireland.