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. 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, he led a remarkable life of action, and
was a most unsystematic thinker. This is a long overdue assessment of his life and
times.
Leo Keohane vividly brings to life the contradictory worlds and glamour of this mercurial
figure, who knew Lord Kitchener, was a dinner companion of King Edward and the
Kaiser, who corresponded with H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence and Tolstoy, and shared a
platform with G.B. Shaw, Conan Doyle, Roger Casement and Alice Stopford Green.
The founder of the Irish Citizen Army along with James Connolly, White marched (and
argued) with James Larkin during the 1913 Lockout, worked with Sean O’Casey, liaised
with Constance Markievicz and socialised with most of the Irish activists and literati of
the early twentieth century. A man who lived many lives, White was the ultimate
outsider beset by divided loyalties with an alternative philosophy and an inability to
conform.