Documentary | 22 May 1902

These slightly weary-looking soldiers, just back from South Africa, were perhaps only temporarily housed in their Cork barracks before a well-earned return home. Despite Irish misgivings, some 30,000 Irish soldiers fought in the Boer War. In a neat lesson in colonial history, the barracks were named after Queen Victoria in 1849 and rapidly re-named 'Collins Barracks' after Irish independence.