First World War Diary of Noël Drury, 6th Royal Dublin Fusiliers

The diary of an officer in the 6th Royal Dublin Fusiliers covering 1914-19 and four theatres of war.

Noël Drury (1884-1975) was from a middle-class Dublin Protestant family and served most of the First World War as an officer in the 6th Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the 10th (Irish) Division. The division was the first of Ireland's wartime volunteer formations to be posted overseas, arriving at Gallipoli in August 1915 in the Suvla Bay landings. Drury and his battalion experienced several key phases of the Gallipoli campaign before being redeployed to Salonika in October 1915. Drury was away from his battalion for a year in 1916-17 suffering from malaria, but rejoined in Palestine towards the end of 1917. From there his battalion was sent to the Western Front in the summer of 1918 to take part in the Hundred Days Offensive. Drury's diaries describe training, daily life, contrasting theatres of the war, and show what it meant to be an Irish officer in the British army.