Deirdre Shanley

The first tanks were used by the British Army at the front in June 1916. 

In April, two months earlier, in Dublin, two very different styles of “tanks” were constructed in haste during the 1916 Rising to

transport soldiers and equipment.

The raw materials for the armoured cars consisted of Daimler lorries borrowed from the Guinness Brewery, as well as a number of locomotive  boilers and an amount of steel plate. I chose to depict the more straightforward box-like design in my print. The steel plates used in this arrangement remind me of the bed of the printing press.

 

The tanks played an important role in the success of the British forces’ defeat of the rebels. They could hold up to twenty-two men and had slits cut into the steel for air and to fire out of.  Eventually the Daimler lorries had their armour removed and they went back to Guinness to resume their job of delivering stout.