At the time when Irish veterans of the Great War were being demobilized, Ireland was in a period of profound social, political, and cultural change that was irreversibly transforming the island. Armistice and the veterans' relief at having survived the conflict and being back with family could not eclipse the overwhelming political climate they met on their homecoming. This article draws on the 1929 Report by the Committee on Claims of British Ex-servicemen, commissioned by the Irish Free State to investigate whether Irish veterans were discriminated against by the Southern Irish and British authorities. The research also makes use of a range of underexploited primary sources: the Liaison and Evacuation Papers in the Military Archives in Dublin, the collection of minutes of the Irish Sailors' and Soldiers' Land Trust in the National Archives in London, and original material from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and the National Archives of Ireland relating to economic programs for veterans. A comparative approach of to the respective demobilizations of veterans in Northern and Southern Ireland in the 1920s reveals that disparities in formal recognition of their sacrifice and in special provision for housing and employment significantly and painfully complicated their repatriation. And when the time came to rejoice over the war's ending, was there anything more tragic than the position of men who had gone out by the thousands for the sake of Ireland to confront the greatest military power ever known in history, who had fought the war and won the war, and who now looked at each other with doubtful eyes?-Stephen Gwynn, "Irish Regiments" 1 W hen Irish veterans were demobilized after World War I, they returned to an Ireland in turmoil, in the midst of profound social, political, and cultural changes that would transform the island. In less than a decade, Emmanuel Destenay is a research fellow in the history department of Sorbonne University and a fellow of the British Higher Education Academy. This article draws on the research done for his book published by the University College Dublin Press, Shadows from the Trenches: Veterans of the Great War and the Irish Revolution (1918-1923) (Dublin, 2021). He thanks Jeffrey Collins and Sandra den Otter, the editors of Journal of British Studies, for supporting the publication of this article, the three anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments and suggestions, and Stefan Brown, Maureen Garvie, and Ellen Wert for the time they have spent on editing the article.