Following my talk last night on Carson, Craig and the British Identity in the Antrim Old Courthouse, there was a brilliant presntation of the War Diary of Alexander Irvine. This was performed by Alistair Smyth with  passages read by an actor dressed as Irvine.

Alexander was born, the ninth of twelve children, in Pogue’s Entry in the town of Antrim – the street he was later to make famous. As a young man he worked as a newsboy, a miner and a soldier before emigrating to the United States, where he acquired an education. He graduated from Yale University as a minister of religion and preached for some years in the Church of the Ascension, Fifth Avenue, New York.

During the final year of the First World War he served as a morale officer on the Western Front, at the request of Lloyd George himself. His Diary is a poignant record of the sufferings of Tommy Atkins, the universal soldier in the First World War, and of the Doctors and Nurses who served him. A pacifist and socialist following his experiences during the Mahdist War in the Sudan (1881 –1899) , during which my greatgrandfather John Adamson also fought, he was a follower, like my granta, of Keir Hardy, who was not afraid to do his duty on the ever changing Front.

Depiction of the Battle of Omdurman (1898).

Irvine’s publications include The Souls Of Poor Folk and The Man From World’s End, as well as the celebrated My Lady Of The Chimney Corner, a tribute to his mother, Anna Irvine nee Gilmour and God and Tommy Atkins. He is buried in Antrim Church of Ireland graveyard.Location of plaque: In Antrim town, at the entrance to Pogue’s Entry. In the Entry itself the family home still stands