1-2 July 2016: ‘War and revolution in the west of Ireland’, NUI Galway

On Friday 1 and Saturday 2 July 2016. NUI Galway hosted a conference exploring ‘War and revolution in the west of Ireland’ between 1913 and 1918. It explored how, in the face of social and political upheaval, regional, sectional and ethnic identities offered an opportunity to impose order on social change in the decade prior to the foundation of the state, making upheaval and loss less threatening and giving meaning to new political realities. This public conference explored the contrasting interpretations of war and revolution in the west of Ireland through the conflicting prisms of class, regional identity, religious faith, language, ethnicity and gender. It included talks on contrasting perspectives of the period from the world of the ‘big house’, the lives of rural women, the Irish in America, the urban poor and a range of competing narratives. The crucial issues of land, recruitment to the military, the emergence of the Irish Volunteers, the Irish language, the Easter Rising in Galway and the social history of ordinary lives were also be examined.

The conference took place in the Aula Maxima, NUI Galway. Download the full programme here.

Learn more about A nation rising, NUI Galway’s programme marking the centenary of the Easter Rising.