In a series of fascinating and brilliantly argued interconnecting essays Professor Tom Garvin has addressed the emergence of a democratic Irish state through the pivotal period of what he terms the long 1922: from the truce of July 1921 to the dumping of arms in May 1923 which marked the end of the Civil War. … Read more
Until recently, few women were given prominence in the long list of Kilmainham Gaol’s political prisoners. However, after the 1916 Rising seventy-seven women were held prisoner in Kilmainham for their part in the rebellion, and at the height of the Civil War in 1923 over three-hundred women, aged between twelve and seventy, were imprisoned there. … Read more
DK: Tell us about your background and early interest in history. FXM: I was born in Ballylongford in north Kerry. It was the height of the Civil War and my father was acting as a doctor with IRA flying columns. Free State soldiers arrived at the house, searching for my father. My mother was eight … Read more
When Peadar O’Donnell was asked on one occasion why he did not bequeath his papers to posterity for historical research, he replied, half in jest, that he had no desire to start the Civil War all over again. If the intensity of the debates provoked by Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins is anything to go … Read more
Seventy-eight years ago on a quiet Tipperary roadway the first nationalist revolt against the British Empire this century was started by a small band of armed men from townlands and villages—Donohill, Solohead and Hollyford—in the vicinity of Tipperary Town. The Soloheadbeg ambush shook British rule in Ireland and sparked a controversy which can be heard … Read more