History (Peer-reviewed publications)
https://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/33
2024-03-29T07:34:32ZSurvival and assimilation: loyalism in the interwar Irish Free State (Pre-published version)
https://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/3117
Survival and assimilation: loyalism in the interwar Irish Free State (Pre-published version)
In 1997, historian R. B. McDowell suggested that when “compared to the thorough
methods for dealing with unpopular minorities … in eastern and central Europe and
elsewhere, the harassment of loyalists was not notably severe” in Southern Ireland.
When measured in lethal violence (a crude and sometimes unreliable metric), there
is much truth in this. Between 1919 and 1921, during an Irish War of Independence
which was followed by a short, sharp civil war and part of a longer “Irish Revolution,”
just over 2,300 people were killed in ways that can be directly linked to the conflict.
The separatist Irish Republican Army (IRA) killed 184 alleged civilian “spies” and
informers, out of a total of just under 1,000 civilian casualties. Elsewhere, the “Posen
Uprising” claimed twice as many lives in seven weeks as the Irish War of Independence
did in three years. There were over 36,000 fatalities in less than five months during the
Finnish Civil War, 3,000 or so in a few days in Bulgaria in September 1918, and another
1,500–3,000 over five days in September 1923. The shorter Estonian and Latvian
Wars of Independence saw 11,750 and 13,246 fatalities, respectively. And as Charles
Townshend has written, the significant reduction of the non-Catholic minority in
Southern Ireland between 1911 and 1926 “may appear trivial in comparison with the
massive dislocation of peoples in Europe, starting with the Greek-Turkish conflict in
the early 1920s.
2022-12-03T00:00:00ZThe Southern Irish Loyalists Relief Association and Irish ex-servicemen of the First World War, 1922–1932 (Pre-published version)
https://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/3115
The Southern Irish Loyalists Relief Association and Irish ex-servicemen of the First World War, 1922–1932 (Pre-published version)
In 1925, the Southern Irish Loyalists Relief Association (SILRA), originally founded for the relief of southern Irish loyalist refugees in Britain, created a fund for ex-servicemen resident in the Irish Free State (IFS). Populated primarily from among the ‘diehard’ right of the British Conservative Party, SILRA’s charitable work was inevitably influenced by the world view of its membership and their audience. But it also had a Dublin sub-committee that operated in very different circumstances in the IFS. This study of SILRA’s efforts to provide welfare to southern Irish veterans of the First World War highlights the extent to which conditions in Ireland – real or perceived – continued to animate British Conservatives long after the Irish Revolution (1916–23). It also adds to the growing literature on ex-servicemen in post-revolutionary Ireland through the lens of SILRA’s lobbying and fundraising.
2023-08-20T00:00:00ZThe disbanded Royal Irish Constabulary and forced migration, 1922–31
https://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/3048
The disbanded Royal Irish Constabulary and forced migration, 1922–31
This article concerns the men of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) who were disbanded from the force in 1922 and felt obliged to leave Ireland for Britain. Afforded unique – if not always entirely sufficient – financial and practical arrangements by the British
government, this was in many respects a distinctive but particularly well documented cohort of Irish migrants. While the RIC was an exclusively male force, disbandment and migration also impacted on the wives and children of married members. The article will first examine the nature of migration under threat of republican violence for Irish-born, disbanded RIC members. It will then explore forced separation and the experiences of police families, before offering some reflections on what this case-study can tell us about contemporary understanding of gender and violence.
2022-04-08T00:00:00ZThe journey to the grave and the feast of death-lying
https://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/2781
The journey to the grave and the feast of death-lying
The journey to the grave and the feast of death-lying.
2016-01-01T00:00:00Z