Goldring volunteered for the
British Army in 1914, at the outbreak of
World War I, but was discharged for medical reasons. Subsequently, he took a more critical attitude towards the war, from a socialist position. He joined the
1917 Club, the mixed gender Bohemian radical equivalent of a "gentlemen's club", at 4 Gerrard Street, Soho; the name celebrated the
Bolshevik revolution in Russia. He moved to
Dublin, Ireland, and married there his first wife, Betty Duncan; they had two children (the elder, Hugh, was killed as a soldier in World War II). While in Dublin, Goldring witnessed the funeral of the Irish Republican activist
Thomas Ashe, which he later wrote about in his book
A Stranger in Ireland. ==Later life==