In this follow-up to the acclaimed The Anglo-Irish War, Peter Cottrell explores the Irish Civil War, a devastating conflict that tore Ireland apart. This book examines the many factions that played a part in the fighting and the terror and counter-terror operations, focusing on the short bloody battles that witnessed more deaths than the preceding years during the struggle for the Free State. Cottrell particularly focuses on the contrasting styles of leadership and the conduct of combat operations by the IRA and the National Army, providing a fascinating study for all students of Irish history as well as military history.
FIFTY ESSAYS.FIFTY CONTRIBUTORS.ONE EXTRAORDINARY YEAR. From the handover of Dublin Castle, to the dawning of a new border across the island, to the fateful divisions of the civil war, Ireland 1922 provides a snapshot of a year of turmoil, tragedy and, amidst it all, state-building as the Irish revolution drew to a close. Leading international scholars from different disciplines explore a turning point in Irish history; one whose legacy remains controversial a century on.
THE IRISH BESTSELLER 'Ferriter has richly earned his reputation as one of Ireland's leading historians' Irish Independent 'Absorbing ... A fascinating exploration of the Civil War and its impact on Ireland and Irish politics' Irish Times In June 1922, just seven months after Sinn Féin negotiators signed a compromise treaty with representatives of the British government to create the Irish Free State, Ireland collapsed into civil war. While the body count suggests it was far less devastating than other European civil wars, it had a harrowing impact on the country and cast a long shadow, socially, economically and politically, which included both public rows and recriminations and deep, often private traumas. Drawing on many previously unpublished sources and newly released archival material, one of Ireland's most renowned historians lays bare the course and impact of the war and how this tragedy shaped modern Ireland.
Everyday Violence in the Irish Civil War presents an innovative study of violence perpetrated by and against non-combatants during the Irish Civil War, 1922–3. Drawing from victim accounts of wartime injury as recorded in compensation claims, Dr Gemma Clark sheds new light on hundreds of previously neglected episodes of violence and intimidation - ranging from arson, boycott and animal maiming to assault, murder and sexual violence - that transpired amongst soldiers, civilians and revolutionaries throughout the period of conflict. The author shows us how these micro-level acts, particularly in the counties of Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford, served as an attempt to persecute and purge religious and political minorities, and to force redistribution of land. Clark also assesses the international significance of the war, comparing the cruel yet arguably restrained violence that occurred in Ireland with the brutality unleashed in other European conflict zones.
This book challenges the widespread scholarly and popular belief that the Irish Civil War (1922-1923) was followed by a 'traumatic silence.' It achieves this by revealing an alternative archive of published testimonies which were largely recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. These testimonies were written by pro- and anti-treaty men and women, in both English and Irish, and nearly all have eluded sustained scholarly attention to date. However, the act of smuggling private, painful experience into the public realm, especially when it challenged official memory making, demanded the cautious deployment of self-protective narrative strategies. As a result, many testimonies from the Irish Civil War emerge in non-conventional, hybridised, and fictionalised forms of life writing. This book re-introduces a number of these testimonies into public debate. It considers contemporary understandings of mental illness and how a number of veterans--both men and women--self-consciously engaged in projects of therapeutic writing as a means to 'heal' the 'spiritual wounds' of civil war. It also outlines the prevalence of literary representations of revolutionary sexual violence, challenging the assumptio
While the Irish Civil War first erupted in Dublin, playing out through the seizure and eventual recapture of the Four Courts, it quickly swept over the entire country. In The Civil War in Dublin, John Dorney extends his study of Dublin beyond the Four Courts surrender, delivering shocking revelations of calculated violence and splits within the pro-Treaty armed forces. Dorney's exacting research, using primary sources and newly available eyewitness testimonies from both sides of the conflict, provides insight into how the entire city of Dublin operated under conditions of disorder and bloodshed: how civilians and guerrilla fighters controlled the streets, how female insurgents operated alongside their male counterparts, how the patterns of IRA violence and National Army counter-insurgency alternated, and-for the first time-how the pro-Treaty 'Murder Gang' emerged from Michael Collins' IRA Intelligence Department, 'the Squad', with devastating and ruthless effect. The Civil War in Dublin brings the chaos of life in the city of Dublin to life through meticulous detail, and it reveals unsettling truths about the extreme actions taken by a burgeoning Irish Free State and its Anti-Treaty opponents. [Subject: Irish Studies, History, Military History, Dublin]
Veteran IRA leader Ernie O’Malley criticised County Kilkenny as being ‘slack’ during the War of Independence, but this fascinating new study of the period, by historian Eoin Swithin Walsh, challenges that view and reveals that Kilkenny was truly at the forefront of the struggle for Irish freedom. No Kilkenny citizen escaped the revolutionary era untouched, especially during the turmoil that followed the Easter Rising of 1916, the upheaval of the War of Independence and the tumultuous Civil War. Key personalities, revolutionary organisations and dramatic events in Kilkenny illuminate the country-wide struggle. Not to be forgotten, the lives of the ‘ordinary’ men and women of the county are explored, emphasising a life beyond politics and conflict. The listing of Kilkenny fatalities during the War of Independence is examined and, for the first time, combatants and civilians who died during the Truce and the Civil War are recorded, revealing an even more deadly conflict than previously believed. Presenting a complete history of the county in the opening decades of the twentieth century – including the use of previously unseen archival material – Kilkenny: In Times of Revolution, 1900–1923 is an indispensable contribution to the literature on the turbulent birth of the Irish nation.
Michael Hopkinson's Green Against Green is the definitive study of the Irish civil war, putting in perspective a bitter and passionate conflict, the legacy of which still divides Irish society today. Widely praised and frequently cited as the most authoritative work on the subject, it continues to hold its place as one of the finest works on modern Irish history. Unlike the Easter Rising and the War of Independence, the Irish Civil War has been largely overlooked by historians, put off by the messy divisions between former War of Independence allies and its continued importance in modern Irish society: even now, the rival parties in the conflict form the basis for two of the largest political parties in Ireland. In Green Against Green, Michael Hopkinson addresses this gap in Irish historical writing, looking closely at the reasons for the outbreak of civil war, the major figures who directed it, how it was fought and its impact across Ireland. This major achievement of historical scholarship traces the history and course of the war from 1912 to its conclusion, starting with a sketch of the background to the divisions which surfaced during the war and continuing through to the functioning of the post-civil war Irish State. This groundbreaking work, 'a dispassionate account of the most passionate times' (Irish Times), captures the confused loyalties and localised, often personal, violence that characterised one of the most critical, and least studied, formative events in modern Irish history. Green Against Green: Table of Contents Preface PART I. 1912-1921 - The Background to the Treaty Divisions, 1912-1918 - The Anglo-Irish War, January 1919-July 1921, and the Truce Period - The Treaty Negotiations - The Treaty Split - The Irish Question in the United States PART II. FROM THE TREATY TO THE ATTACK ON THE FOUR COURTS - The Political and Constitutional Background in Early 1922 - The Military Split - De Valera and the Military and Political Developments - Military Developments after the Army Convention - The North, from Treaty to Attack on the Four Courts - Social and Governmental Problems - The Search for Unity - The Constitution - The June Election and the Assassination of Sir Henry Wilson PART III. THE OPENING OF THE WAR - The Attack on the Four Courts - Dublin Fighting PART IV. THE EARLY CIVIL WAR - The Military and Political Background to the Fighting - The War in the Localities: July-August 1922 - The Opening of the Guerrilla Phase of the War - The Death of Collins - The Establishment of the Third Dáil - Peace Initiatives - The Formation of the Republican Government - The First Executions - The British Government and the Early Civil War - The Southern Unionists and the Civil War - The Civil War and the Railways - The War in the Localities: September 1922-January 1923 PART V. THE WAR'S END - The Free State—Government and Army: January-April 1923 - The Republicans and the Civil War: January-April 1923 - The War in the Localities: January-April 1923 - The North and the Civil War - Exile Nationalism: The United States and Britain in the Civil War - The Ceasefire PART VI. THE POST-WAR PERIOD - The Republicans - The Post-War Free State Government and Army - The Republican Hunger-Strike, October-November 1923 Conclusion
Présentation de l'éditeur : "During the Irish Civil War eighty-three executions were carried out by the National Army of the emerging Free State government, including four prisoners not tried or convicted of any charge. After the war the trial records were destroyed and the execution policy became a bitter memory that was rarely discussed. In this groundbreaking work, Seán Enright examines how a climate emerged in which prisoners could be tried by rudimentary military courts and then executed, and how so many other prisoners were killed without any trial at all. The government of the emerging state relied on the National Army to fight the war and implement policy, but the National Army was new and lacked discipline. More than 125 further prisoners were killed in the custody of the state; shot at the point of capture or killed in custody. 'Shot while trying to escape' became an all too familiar press release. Seventeen prisoners were killed in the Kerry landmine massacres alone. In the struggle to survive, the new state turned a blind eye and the rule of law simply unravelled. Featuring new material from the Irish Military Archives, The Irish Civil War: Law, Execution and Atrocity examines the dark legacy of this chaotic and bitter conflict."
