Contested memories: revisiting the battle of Mount Street Bridge, 1916

Abstract

The Battle of Mount Street Bridge, 26 April 1916, was the most successful rebel military engagement of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. Though it accounted for something in the region of half of the total British casualties of the Rising, exact casualty figures have remained elusive. Contested Memories: The Battle of Mount Street Bridge, a constituent project of the Humanities Virtual World Consortium, is using virtual world technologies and rigorous empirical research to interrogate the intricacies of the battle. This article presents the project’s work to date establishing an accurate number for British killed and wounded during the battle. The most widely cited figure for British casualties is General Sir John Maxwell’s 234, but research for the project has shown that this total is exaggerated. Combining a wide range of sources, the article presents its methodology and provides a figure of twenty-six for Sherwood Foresters who died as a result of the battle. It also offers evidence for the most authoritative figure for wounded troops to date based on available evidence (134). The 160 casualties found here are, then, far less than has most often been assumed.