Our Casualty, and Other Stories: 1918

In Short

Our Casualty, and Other Stories is a series of vignettes written in the immediate wake of the First World War. It observes Irish society—and those caught in the military machinery of the era—with a detached, ironic amusement. Rather than focusing on the grand heroism of battle, the collection highlights the bureaucratic mishaps, the social frictions, and the persistent, often humorous, eccentricities of human nature. Through its varied cast, the book reveals how the absurdities of civilian life persist even when the world is at war.

The Story

The stories move between the home front in Ireland and the fragmented experiences of soldiers stationed abroad. We begin with the Ballyhaine Veterans’ Corps, a collection of middle-aged men who, despite their lack of military expertise, take their duty to defend their villas from hypothetical German invaders with deadly, comical seriousness. Their self-importance is constantly punctured by the practical skepticism of their wives and the reality of their own physical limitations. This tone of gentle satire continues as we observe the "stunts" of the military—elaborate, dusty training exercises planned by officials for the sake of appearances, while the sensible soldiers, like McMahon, simply look for a comfortable spot to hide with a novel.

The narrative shifts to the hospitals and training camps, where the tragedy of war is filtered through bureaucratic bungling. One soldier, Binny, finds himself marked as dead on a clerical list and is nearly buried by well-meaning orderlies who prioritize official paperwork over the obvious fact that the man is breathing. Later, we see a group of weary, mud-caked soldiers, recently returned from the "Big Push," waiting at a dressing station. They are not grand figures of myth, but exhausted boys, one of whom speaks to himself of their triumph with a mix of trauma and street-smart defiance.

The domestic landscape in Ireland is equally fraught with irony. The transition to "summer time" becomes a battleground of stubborn local pride, with neighbors and officials refusing to synchronize their watches based on their political or religious allegiances. We see the absurdity of a local court case where a man wins his lawsuit not through justice or evidence, but by cleverly framing his opponent for the bribery of the judge. The political tension of the time is distilled into a scene where a lady of the house remains oblivious to an insurgent raid, dismissing the gunfire and the presence of "Sinn Feiners" as mere domestic nuisances.

The collection concludes by grounding these conflicts in the lives of specific individuals—the young undergraduate Sam, who treats political sedition like a college prank, and the men who gamble on hay or argue over the "proper" time of day. The war and the revolutionary struggle are never far away, yet they are always met with the peculiar, stubborn idiosyncrasies of the Irish character. By the final page, the reader is left with a portrait of a world that is profoundly out of joint, yet maintained by the sheer, stubborn persistence of those who live in it.

How It Unfolds

The Home Guard at Play Middle-aged men organize a volunteer corps to defend their suburban villas, adopting the trappings of military life while their families look on with skepticism. The absurdity of their "stunt" attacks becomes apparent when the men are more interested in survival than in the strategic maneuvers planned by their superiors.

The Bureaucracy of Death In the hospital wards, a soldier is mistakenly listed as dead and must argue for his own life against orderlies bound by rigid administrative procedures. This highlights the chilling distance between the reality of the human condition and the cold efficiency of military record-keeping.

The Folly of Time A neighborhood divides itself over the adoption of "summer time," leading to local disputes that paralyze the courts and the banks. It serves as a microcosm for the larger, deeper divisions that define the social and political landscape of the era.

The Quiet Insurrection Political change arrives in the form of raids and shootings, yet the locals integrate these events into their daily rhythms with astonishing indifference. A woman of means worries more about the noise in her hall than the presence of rebels, framing the turmoil through the lens of a domestic annoyance.

The Final Absurdity Legal battles are won through clever deceit and back-alley bribes disguised as poultry, proving that the law is often as malleable as the people it serves. The story leaves us with the impression that life continues to revolve around small, personal gains even as the world around it changes.

The People

The figures in these stories are defined by their resistance to being changed by the crises surrounding them. McMahon stands out as the archetypal skeptic; he recognizes the "energetic fussiness" of military leadership for what it is and prioritizes his own comfort, refusing to be swept up in the performative nature of training. Binny, the soldier mistaken for a corpse, represents the individual caught in the gears of a system that cares more for lists than for living men; he is a figure of tragicomic helplessness. Lady Devereux embodies a specific class of detachment, viewing the encroachment of revolution as a nuisance similar to a plumber. Finally, there is Sam, the undergraduate whose high-spirited rioting and capture of the Lord Mayor’s flag represent the chaotic, irrepressible energy of a generation that views political upheaval with the same reckless, playful arrogance as a student prank.

In Its Own Voice

The women were a difficulty at first. They insisted on regarding us as a joke, and used to repeat the absurd witticism of the street boys.

This reflects the domestic resistance faced by the aging, eager volunteers of the Ballyhaine Veterans’ Corps.

One evening, when Binny had been in the hospital about a week, two orderlies came to his bed with a stretcher. They told him they were going to carry him down to the mortuary and put him into his coffin.

This quote illustrates the grim, mechanical failure of a hospital system that prioritizes clerical lists over human life.

“I suppose it must be on account of the war,” she said. She had learned--before Easter, 1916, everybody had learned--to put down all irregularities to the war.

This passage captures how easily the Irish population began to categorize all life's disruptions as the result of external military forces.

What It's Really About

The book is a study in the persistence of the mundane. It argues that even during the most tectonic shifts of the twentieth century—a world war and a revolutionary struggle—human life is dominated by the trivial, the petty, and the stubborn. It questions the legitimacy of authority, whether military, legal, or political, when that authority is so clearly disconnected from the realities of the people it governs. Ultimately, it suggests that the Irish character, with its penchant for joking, maneuvering, and prioritizing the local over the national, is a form of survival mechanism that allows people to maintain their sanity in an increasingly senseless world.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate dry wit and the ability to find humor in the face of institutional failure will find much to admire here. The book captures a very specific, liminal moment in Irish history, and for the historically curious, it provides a window into the mindsets of a society grappling with rapid change. However, readers should be aware that the book assumes a familiarity with the social hierarchies and local geography of Ireland in 1918. The prose is precise and unadorned, but the humor is deeply rooted in the cultural attitudes of the time, which can feel somewhat detached to a modern reader.

The greatest challenge for a contemporary audience is the period-specific language and the implicit assumptions about class and gender that underpin the stories. There is a certain cynicism about the "glorious cause" that may be bracing for some and distancing for others. Yet, if you enjoy literature that strips away the heroic veneer of history to reveal the bewildered, complaining, and surprisingly resilient people underneath, this collection remains a sharp and honest companion. It stays with you not because of its grand themes, but because of its small, human truths about how we muddle through when the world seems to have lost its way.