page_title: Elise Sandes
section_title: Closure of Sandes' homes
hierarchical_section_title: Elise Sandes / Death / Closure of Sandes' homes
caption_attribution_description: Following on from yesterday's photo of soldiers in the Reading Room at the Elise Sandes Soldiers Home at the Curragh Camp in Kildare, this photo is of the Dining Room. Thanks to macabee2012 for the following: "This is the dining room of Miss Sandes Soldiers Home in the Curragh - one of over thirty such Homes attached to army locations all over Ireland, Founded by Elise Sandes of Tralee, Co Kerry, this network of Soldiers Homes was an evangelical missionary movement designed mainly to keep young soldiers out of the pubs and provide recreational facilities - as well as a bit of religion. The first Home was in Cork and later ones were in Queesntown (Cobh), Belfast, Parkgates Dublin, Ballykinler, Derry, among other towns; there were eight Homes in India in places such as Rawal Pindi, Quetta and Lucknow. See History Ireland, vol. 13, issue 4, July/August 2005..." This photo incidentally provides invaluable information about what the soldiers were eating at the time for their supper, and how much they were paying for their grub. A blackboard behind the counter lists dishes and prices. We're assuming the cost was in pennies rather than shillings. Here they are (those that were possible to read): Eggs &amp; Bacon 3 Two Eggs 4/5? Bacon &amp; Tomatoes 4 Bacon &amp; Onions 3 Bacon &amp; Chips 3 Rissoles &amp; Chips 3 Rissoles &amp; Onions 3 Desserts Apple Tart &amp; Custard 2 Treacle &amp; Custard or Rice 1 Blancmange &amp; Jelly 2 Rice Pudding 1 Gorgeous account in from scooter2017 of this Dining Room in the 1960s: "You could add another 50 years to this 1916 photo and little had changed. The long benches and tables were still the same. They did add a jukebox in the early 60s. It was in front of the pillar where that first soldier is standing. A record could be played for 3d. Date: Sunday, 16 July 1916 NLI Ref.: EAS_2486
context_page_description: Elise Sandes was the founder of a welfare movement for soldiers that bears her name and still survives today. She was an evangelical Christian and philanthropist and her concern for a young soldier in Tralee in the late 1860s led her to set up a centre for soldiers' recreation and general welfare. By 1913 there were thirty-one such 'soldiers' homes' all situated in the vicinity of various army barracks; twenty-two were in Ireland and the rest in British India. It is widely regarded that Sandes Homes for Soldiers were very well run and filled a real need among young soldiers, often far from their families who were made to feel at home and not faced with the cold commercial atmosphere of the barracks canteen. Sandes believed that a good feminine influence met a real need where young soldiers were concerned, and the 'homes' were the only place where some of the young recruits could receive anything approaching motherly care.
  Only three Sandes homes remained open in the Irish Free State after 1921, but there were still 20 homes in total in the late 1920s, most of them in India.
context_section_description: All the homes in India closed in 1947 when the former dominion finally gained its independence and the British departed. For a short period after World War II, there were homes in such diverse locations such as Borneo, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Malaysia, Singapore and even Iceland. None of these international centres survive today. Three of the homes in Ireland remained open for considerably longer : one in the Curragh, at the request of the Irish Army, one in Cobh (Queenstown) and one in Dublin. These last two closed soon after, but the home in the Curragh remained open until the 1980s, surviving mainly on account of the determination of the women who ran it.
caption: Dining Room, Elise Sandes Soldiers Home, Curragh Camp
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