Irish History

Between the lines of a tale of murder and motive

by john regan

Michael Collins, General Commanding-in-Chief, as a Historiographical Problem

by john regan

History, Volume 92, Number 307, July 2007 , pp. 318-346(29)

This revisionist article argues the case for recognizing a short-lived military dictatorship in 1922 in southern... more This revisionist article argues the case for recognizing a short-lived military dictatorship in 1922 in southern Ireland under the revolutionary leader Michael Collins. Central to understanding this situation, and how it came about, is the identification of a secret Irish Republican Brotherhood-Free State diarchy from February 1922 that evolved into a military government in July after the beginning of the civil war. This reinterpretation makes four claims. First, it challenges assumptions about the structure of power under Collins while he was commander-in-chief of the Free State army. Secondly, it re-evaluates Collins's role as an icon of southern Irish nationalism associated with constitutionalism and democracy. Thirdly, it questions part of the foundation myth of the southern Irish state, which assumes independence was achieved in 1922 by an uninterrupted, constitutional process. Fourthly, it calls into question the methodologies applied by historians defending this constitutional interpretation. Since 1970 the historiographical context of a grand constitutional narrative of southern state formation has been war in Northern Ireland. In response to this event, it is suggested, historians have emphasized the Irish state's democratic origins so as to define southern experiences in 1922, against the Provisional IRA's unmandated attempt at violent state formation. This has contributed to distortions in both historical method and interpretation.

The 'Irish revolution' as a historiographical problem

by john regan

'The 'Bandon Valley Massacre' as a historical problem' artcle

by john regan

"A Terrible Beauty": Yeats and the Easter 1916 Rising

by Jim Clarke

Opening lecture at the 2012 Saor Ollscoil na hEireann Summer School on the 1916 Rising, 24th May 2012, 8pm.

With V. Crossman, S. Lucey and O Purdue, ‘Sources for the study of the Irish poor Law, 1850-1921’ Visual, material and print culture in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Four Courts Press, 2010).

by Georgina Laragy

‘Poor relief in the south of Ireland, 1850-1921’ in Poverty and welfare in Ireland, 1838-1948, V. Crossman & P. Gray (eds) (Irish Academic Press, 2011)

by Georgina Laragy

Writing the History of the Financial Crisis: Lessons from the South Sea Bubble.

by Patrick Walsh

Chapple, R. M. 2011 'Review: Past Times, Changing Fortunes: Proceedings of a Public Seminar on Archaeological Discoveries on National Road Schemes, August 2010' Blogspot post

by Robert M Chapple

Naming practices among the Irish secular nobility in the high middle ages

by Freya Verstraten Veach

'Constructing Moral Hospitals: Childhood Health in Irish Reformatories and Industrial Schools, c.1851-1890' in Anne Mac Lellen and Alice Mauger (eds), Childhood Illness in Irish History (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2013)

by Ian Miller

Within this chapter I probe into the bio-psychological paradigms that underpinned mid-nineteenth century‘moral... more Within this chapter I probe into the bio-psychological paradigms that underpinned mid-nineteenth century‘moral hospitals’ in Ireland by charting how childhood health was negotiated and managed in reformatories and industrial schools in light of pressing socio-cultural anxieties over juvenile criminality. I begin by suggesting that criminality was then widely understood with reference to an organic framework that legitimated ideas that the bodies and minds of child criminals had abnormally developed in the absence of nurturing parental influence. This precept encouraged the development of an official strategy towards Irish reformatories and industrial schools that emphasised bodily and psychological reform for destitute children as a means of restoring normative patterns of physical, mental and moral growth.

I continue by demonstrating that reformatories and industrial schools were designed to create healthy institutional environments intended to juxtapose criminal environments where the “dangerous classes” were feared to be being reared. As part of this, the physiological and psychological roots of criminal psychology were targeted by mechanisms set in place to allow for appropriate nurturing. As examples, I focus on the multiple uses of outdoor work and diet as a means of reinstating normal processes of childhood growth and preventing future criminality. I conclude by suggesting that although moral treatment dominated initial approaches to the institutional management of juvenile criminality, forms of medical superintendence emerged in response to adjusting institutional health demands and a need to adapt to incorporate shifting forms of biomedical knowledge – in particular germ theory. Importantly, the types of disease encountered in reality were often those not obviously connected to criminality, meaning that reformatories and industrial schools ultimately purported to be providing services bordering upon paediatric healthcare. Overall, I explore what reformatories and industrial schools were meant to be as a guide to furthering our knowledge of their development in Ireland and to better illuminate how these sites ultimately transformed into places where the sanctity of childhood would ultimately become threatened and undermined.

'Slightly Constitutional' Politics: Fianna Fáil's Tortuous Entry to the Irish Parliament, 1926-7

by Donnacha Ó Beacháin

Parliamentary History (Wiley-Blackwell); Oct2010, Vol. 29 Issue 3, pp. 376-394

Fianna Fáil is Ireland's largest political party since 1932, and has been in office for almost 60 years, mostly as a... more Fianna Fáil is Ireland's largest political party since 1932, and has been in office for almost 60 years, mostly as a single-party government. Despite this impressive electoral and parliamentary history, the party's constitutional origins are fraught with ambivalence towards Irish state institutions. Fianna Fáil's early years, perhaps eclipsed by subsequent electoral successes, have received relatively little attention from historians and most general works content themselves with a couple of lines about the oath of allegiance with an underlying assumption that entry to the Irish parliament was inevitable. The aim of this article is to show how the process that brought Fianna Fáil into parliamentary politics was haphazard and unpredictable. Through extensive use of party literature and parliamentary party minutes from the 1920s, this article presents a detailed account of Fianna Fáil's evolving attitude towards the oath of allegiance and how it succeeded in overcoming ideological reservations to take its seats in the Irish Free State legislature.

Biographical Entry for Denis Daly (c.1638-1721)

by Eoin Kinsella

Publsihed in James McGuire and James Quinn (eds), Dictionary of Irish Biography (9 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Was Sinn Fein Dying? A Quantitative Post-Mortem of the Party's Decline and the Emergence of Fianna Fail

by Donnacha Ó Beacháin

Irish Political Studies
Vol. 24, No. 3, September 2009, PP. 385–398

This article calls for a reappraisal of the consensus surrounding the split within Sinn Féin in 1926 that led to the... more This article calls for a reappraisal of the consensus surrounding the split within Sinn Féin in 1926 that led to the foundation of Fianna Fáil. It demonstrates that quantitative factors cited to show Sinn Féin’s ‘terminal’ decline – finances, cumann (branch) numbers, and election results – and to explain de Valera’s decision to leave Sinn Féin and establish a rival republican organisation, Fianna Fáil, do not provide sufficient objective grounds to explain the republican leader’s actions. The article demonstrates that Sinn Féin’s election results during the period in question (1923–26) were encouraging and the decline in finances and cumann numbers can be explained by the fact that the base year used to compare progress was 1923, an election year. Moreover, the article compares the performance of Sinn
Féin to the first five years of Fianna Fáil (1926–31) to show that what has been interpreted as terminal decline can also be attributed to normal inter-election lulls in party activity. Correspondingly, subjective factors – e.g. personal rivalries, differences in ideology, organisational style and levels of patience in terms of achieving political power – were most likely the
determining factors rather than organisational decline

From Revolutionaries to Politicians: Deradicalization and the Irish Experience

by Donnacha Ó Beacháin

Radical History Review, Winter2003, Issue 85, pp. 114-123

Chapple, R. M. & McSparron, C. 2000 'New Settlers on the Electronic Frontier- the experience of the IJAI. Editorial' Internet Journal of Archaeology in Ireland 1

by Robert M Chapple

Editorial by Robert M Chapple & Cormac McSparron from the Internet Journal of Archaeology in Ireland 1 (2000). The... more Editorial by Robert M Chapple & Cormac McSparron from the Internet Journal of Archaeology in Ireland 1 (2000). The journal was originally available at www.ijai.supanet.com. A cached version of the site is still available, via the Way Back Machine, at Archive.org (http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.ijai.supanet.com).

‘King and Magnate in medieval Ireland: Walter de Lacy, King Richard and King John’, Irish Historical Studies, xxxvii, no. 146 (Nov, 2010), 179-202.

by Colin Veach

Irish mining history and the World Wide Web: a survey of current resources

by Greg Fewer

Published in 'Mining History Society of Ireland Newsletter', 5 (July 1997), pp. 6-8.
Re-published in 'Annual Journal of the Shropshire Caving and Mining Club', no. 5 (1997), pp. 8-15.

Waterford and its hinterland: an historical overview

by Jim Galloway

co-authored with Margaret Murphy and Anne Connon

published in James Eogan and Elizabeth Shee Twohig eds., Cois tSiuire - Nine Thousand years of Human Activity in the Lower Suir Valley (Dublin, National Roads Authority, 2011), pp. 217-44.

"Imperium in Imperio: Irish Episcopal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century"

by Colin Barr