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Known as 'God's Own Country' or 'Little Ireland' the Protestant and Catholic communities in Cleator Moor reflected the wider sectarian divide and tensions that existed in Ireland at the time. However, their respective religious leaders exhorted them in sermons to enlist and do their bit for God, King and Country.

But underlying tensions were exhibited by which regiment a man chose to serve in. Catholics volunteered to join the Tyneside Irish Brigade whereas the Protestants preferred the local Border Regiment. Both the Rev. Ceasar Caine the Vicar of Cleator, and Father Dean Clayton the Parish Priest, had delivered sermons that turned a church service into a recruitment meeting.

Despite their initial enthusiasm, by the end of the war the Protestant and Catholic communities had begun to doubt what they were fighting for. This widespread disillusionment was felt acutely by the Irish Catholics, who felt that preserving the British Empire had become the reason for going to war, and not just to protect a small country like Belgium.

The Rev. Caine had decided at the age of sixty in 1917 to become a military chaplain and his first-hand experience of the suffering had tempered his early crusading zeal. But it was the widespread unemployment and hardship experienced at the end of the war that shattered any illusions that they were fighting for a better world.

Perhaps as a result, it wasn鈥檛 until 2005 that Cleator Moor erected a war memorial for the whole community, where everyone could go and remember those who had given their lives whether they were Catholic of Protestant.

Location: Cleator Moor, Cumbria CA23 3AB
Image: Rev Caesar Cane, courtesy of Robert Baxter, Whitehaven Archives

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