What really happened to Ireland's Great War soldiers after they returned home?

'Irish soldiers returned to a country in increasing conflict with an enemy whose uniform they had worn'

Dr Paul Taylor

We are in the midst of a fest of commemoration from the Great War to the Rising, but what we remember often defines more how we see ourselves now than what really happened. The ex-servicemen who returned from the Great War were certainly hostages to such fortune. They became the litmus test for the dominant theme defining the new Ireland; its relationship to Great Britain.