All My Dream Companions Gone

200,000 young men from the island of Ireland fought in World War I, including two of my great-grandfathers. They returned from the horror of the trenches, their British uniforms ill-fitting in a changed Ireland with a fresh sense of its nationhood. Our opening song, A JOB THAT I CAN DO, finds a young man weighing up his options, confident that he’s going into this with his eyes open. Reality sets in on DRUM. My great-grandmothers would have received a separation allowance as per THE SEPARATION WALTZ. Fionnuala Walsh’s Irish Women and the Great War provided insight into the jaundiced light through which the allowance and its recipients were often viewed.