After the New South Wales Irish Rifles was formed in the late 19th century and some members volunteered to serve during the Boer War, it became the NSW Irish Rifle Regiment.

It was re-designated as the 33rd Infantry Regiment in 1913 but was prevented from serving overseas during the First World War.

The Irish Anzacs Project, which aims to identify all Irish-born enlistments in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War, has launched an online database of those who served.

The director of the project is Dr Jeff Kildea, Chair of Australian history at University College Dublin.

“…We’ve got 5,776 names now….There are also about 70,000 records that need to be gone though. They are not online, so it could take years to go through them to find all the Irish. My estimates put the total number of Irish in the Anzacs at around 6,000 and about 860 died as a result of their war service. As we go though it there will probably be close to 900.”

He says there were many different reasons people joined the Anzacs. “We’ve got to cast our mind back to what the situation was in 1914. Australians, whether they were of British or Irish stock, were members of the British Empire. The Empire was an important security for Australia. People felt they were a European outpost in a hostile Asian region and the British Empire, the Royal Navy, provided an important sense of security to Australia,” says Dr Kildea.

"At the outbreak of war you got the Catholic newspapers supporting it and saying things like, we need to stand by Britain because if Germany wins it will be seeking further colonies in our region, because it had already taken the north east of New Guinea.

A number of people also joined for personal reasons. Those born in Ireland or Britain probably saw it as an opportunity to go home at the government’s expense. They didn’t quite realise that they would then be sent to Gallipoli. They were originally meant to go to camps on the Salisbury Plain in England.”

Dr Kildea says the diaries of soldiers provide a sense of individual reasons for joining.

“Some joined for pragmatic reasons such as to have regular work. The Anzacs were very well paid. They were paid six shillings a day, compared to those in the British army who were only paid one shilling a day. The cash incentive would have been strong for some who joined the Australian forces.

“There was also quite a phenomenon of people signing up under aliases. Perhaps they were trying to disappear, to escape from their marriage or creditors.”