The supernatural in the Irish revolution 1916-1923

Abstract

This project's goal is to investigate the supernatural beliefs, practices, and anomalous experiences of Irish revolutionaries and their opponents during the period of 1916-1923. More specifically, along with providing a broad overview of their phenomenological characteristics, this project aims to determine the impact that supernatural beliefs, practices, and anomalies had on the way the revolution was fought and how it was remembered in the decades afterwards. Through a systematic identification and close reading of 15,000 pages of primary source documents from military and folklore archives, a database of supernatural memorates has been built comprising 4,416 entries tabulated and categorized on a wide range of demographic, phenomenological, parapsychological, and historiographical metrics. The following chapters provide a summative analysis of this data through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. This wealth of data suggests that the supernatural side of the Irish Revolution was far more diverse, impactful, and historically rich than has previously been supposed, and that it merits further concentrated research. Of the varieties of supernatural phenomena identified, this thesis will analyse in greatest detail extra-sensory perception, hauntings, apparitions, prophecies, and omens. This study contends that the supernatural shaped how the Irish Revolution was remembered and experienced, and furthermore, that these supernatural remembrances and experiences were often catalysed by trauma and had a significant and formative presence in the ideology of Irish revolutionaries.