Captain Jack White ― Imperialism, Anarchism and the Irish Citizen Army

Captain Jack White DSO (1879-1946) is a fascinating yet neglected figure in Irish history. The son of Field Marshal Sir George White V.C., he became a Boer war hero, and, crucially, was the first Commandant of the Irish Citizen Army. One of the few notable figures in Ireland to declare himself an anarchist, Jack White led a remarkable life of action and was a most unsystematic thinker. As an accessible and original biography, this study is based on the White family papers and never-before-seen archival research. It is a long overdue assessment of Jack White's life and times, and it vividly brings to life the contradictory worlds and glamor of this mercurial figure, who knew Lord Kitchener; who was a dinner companion of King Edward and the Kaiser; who corresponded with H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, and Tolstoy; and who shared a platform with G.B. Shaw, Conan Doyle, Roger Casement, and Alice Stopford Green. As the founder of the Irish Citizen Army along with James Connolly, Captain Jack White marched (and argued) with James Larkin during the 1913 Lockout, worked with Sean O'Casey, liaised with Constance Markievicz, and socialized with most of the Irish activists and literati of the early 20th century. As a man who lived many lives, White was the ultimate outsider beset by divided loyalties with an alternative philosophy and an inability to conform.