Emmet Dalton

Emmet Dalton MC (4 March 1898 – 4 March 1978) was an Irish soldier and film producer. He served in the British Army in the First World War, reaching the rank of acting Captain However, on his return to Ireland he became one of the senior figures in the Dublin Brigade of the guerrilla Irish Republican Army which fought against British rule in Ireland.

He was a close associate of Michael Collins and travelled separately from the Irish Treaty negotiating team with Collins to London. He was Military Liaison Officer for the Treaty talks. During the Irish Civil War he held one of the highest ranks as Major General in the pro-Treaty National Army but resigned his command following the death of Collins. He later founded a film production company in London and founded Ardmore Studios in Wicklow together with Louis Elliman in 1958. Producing a number of notable pictures in the 1950s and 1960s.

James Emmet Dalton was born to James F. and Katharine L. Dalton, an Irish-American father and an Irish mother, in Falls River, Massachusetts, United States on 4 March 1898, but the family moved back to Ireland when he was two. He grew up in a middle class Catholic background in Drumcondra in North Dublin and lived at no. 8 Upper St. Columba's Road. He was educated by the Christian Brothers at O'Connell School in North Richmond Street. He joined the nationalist militia, the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and the following year, though only fifteen, was involved in the smuggling of arms into Ireland.

Dalton joined the British Army in 1915 for the duration of the Great War. His decision was not that unusual among Irish Volunteers, as over 20,000 of the National Volunteers joined the British New Army on the urgings of Nationalist leader John Redmond. Dalton's father, however, disagreed with his son's decision. Emmet Dalton initially joined the 7th battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers (RDF) as a temporary 2nd Lieutenant - by 1916, he was attached to the 9th Battalion, RDF, 16th (Irish) Division under Major-General W.R. Hickie, which contained many Irish nationalist recruits.

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