New recruitment scheme for munitions workers

Dublin, 25 June 1915 - The latest drive by the British government to secure additional skilled workers for munitions manufacturing operations in Ireland was announced in Dublin yesterday.

Offices in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Derry will open every evening from 6pm to 9pm, on Saturdays from 4pm to 6pm and on Sunday afternoons to recruit workers. The scheme applies only to men who are currently in employment and is in addition to the munitions work available through labour exchanges for those who are unemployed. It is being presented as an opportunity for people who are ineligible to serve at the front to contribute to the war effort.

A confidential police document for Londonderry, May 1915. It states: 'There is no want of employment in the city of Derry and its factories are fully employed in carrying out a contract to supply 300,000 army shirts. (Image: National Archives UK,  CO 904/97)

The new Munitions Work Bureaus are a further acknowledgement by the government that the war effort is being hampered by the difficulties in supplying soldiers with the arms, ammunition and general equipment which they require.

The scheme has already been unveiled in Britain where it is seen as the last attempt to rely on voluntary rather than compulsory means.

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]