April 2022
| April 2022 NOTICE Some email browsers ‘clip’ the newsletter, making it shorter. If you click ‘View entire message‘ it will open the full newsletter News and updates on the programme of commemorations relating to the events in Irish history that took place between 1912 and 1923. If you would like to inform us of any suitable material for future newsletters – anything related to the Decade of Centenaries – please feel free to email [email protected]. 1. Lectures and Events (some require registration) 2022 Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023 DETAILS AND LINK HERE New Bursary Scheme for the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2022/2023 The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD, announced a new bursary scheme, in partnership with the Royal Irish Academy, for the final phase of the Decade of Centenaries. The objective of the bursary scheme is to encourage new local research and local history studies, and a meaningful examination of local, regional, and national events during the Struggle for Independence and Civil War period. It is a timely opportunity to acknowledge the significant contribution of local historians in furthering fields of study concerning local events and related themes during this period. Applications for the 2022 scheme are now open. The closing date for applications is Wednesday, 27th April 2022 at 5.30pm. A number of bursaries will be awarded to local historians each year in 2022 and 2023, to encourage new local research and local history studies, furthering fields of research relating to the Struggle for Independence and the Civil War period within their communities. A complementary programme of outreach activities to support public engagement will also be curated. It is envisaged that the award recipients for 2022 will be announced in June. It is anticipated that up to 8 awards under the scheme will be made annually. Understanding the varying financial requirements of projects, applications will be invited for amounts ranging from €1,000 to €10,000. FULL DETAILS HERE Mná100: Lil and May Conlon and the Cork Manifesto Mná100: Lil and May Conlon and the Cork Manifesto is an in person round table discussion organised by Cork City Library in partnership with Mná100 and the Decade of Centenaries Programme. Wednesday 6th April in Cork City Library from 6.30-8.30pm. See below to book tickets through Eventbrite or tune into the live stream on Cork City Libraries. To mark the 100th anniversary of the ‘Cork Manifesto’, a public conversation will take place, to examine how ‘ordinary people’ recalled events in 1922. The discussion will be chaired by Dr. Sinéad McCoole, and feature panellists, Dr John Borgonovo (UCC), Cal McCarthy (The Michael Collins House Museum), Dan Breen (Cork Public Museum), Anne Twomey (Shandon Historical Society), and Councillor Mary Rose Desmond (Cork City Council’s Women’s Caucus). Interjections from the audience will be encouraged and together we will provoke a general discussion about what was the ordinary people’s take on the split, propaganda and the whole media war which became later, the Women’s War. REGISTER HEREWATCH LIVESTREAM HERE ‘Irish Travellers/Mincéirs and the State 1922-2022: The Struggle for Equality’ The online launch of the autumn conference,’Irish Travellers / Mincéirs and the State, 1922-2022′,will take place on Friday 8th April 2022 (International Traveller and Roma Day) , 10am to 12pm. The conference itself, which is part of the government’s Decade of Centenaries programme, will be held in NUI Galway on 16-17 September 2022. The launch will be performed by Senator Eileen Flynn, and participants will include the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, the President of NUI Galway, Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, and broadcaster Vincent Browne. There will be performances by Trisha Reilly and Rosaleen McDonagh. REGISTER HERE Inside the Railings: A Portrait of Life within the Public Record Office of Ireland An evening of readings and pictures, live from the Reading Room of the former Public Record Office, marking the centenary of the occupation of the Four Courts, April 1922Live-streamed from the Appeal Court, formerly the reading room of the Public Record Office Thursday, 14 April, 7-8.30pm SpeakersThe Hon. Mr. Justice Donal O’Donnell, Chief JusticeZoë Reid, Keeper, Public Services and Collections, National Archives (Ireland) Ciarán Wallace, Deputy Director, Beyond 2022 | Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland Shona Gibson and Sadhbh Malin, the Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art Maura Howe, The Courts Service of Ireland One hundred years ago, on the evening of Holy Thursday 1922, Anti-Treaty forces occupied the Four Courts and the Public Record Office of Ireland. Ten weeks later, the stand-off ended with the Battle of the Four Courts—the opening engagement of the Civil War. Three days of fighting between the National Army and the Anti-Treaty garrison (28–30 June 1922) left many dead and wounded. The Four Courts lay in ruins and centuries of historic records were destroyed. While incomparable with the loss of human life, this cultural loss was one of the great tragedies of the Civil War. On the centenary of the occupation of the Four Courts, Inside the Railings will give a flavour of ordinary life in and around this busy part of the city—before the fighting and the smoke obscured them from public memory. Before its destruction, the Four Courts was a bustling location in the city, where staff, residents and the public went about their daily lives. Through a selection of short talks, rarely-seen photographs, and engaging eyewitness accounts, Inside the Railings will portray life in earlier decades, and during the ten tense weeks of the occupation. REGISTER HERE An Garda Síochána Centenary Celebrations A family friendly day of events will take place in Kildare Town on Easter Saturday, 16 April from 11.45am to mark the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Civic Guard/An Garda Siochána to Co. Kildare in 1922. The commemorative day has been organised and funded by Kildare County Council’s Decade of Commemorations Committee, An Garda Síochána, the Garda Síochána Retired Members Association, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (under the Decade of Centenaries 2012-23 initiative). This day of events will begin with the arrival of a parade led by the Garda Band to Market Square, Kildare, and addresses by An Cathaoirleach of Kildare County Council, Cllr. Naoise Ó Cearúil, Deputy Garda Commissioner Anne Marie McMahon and Marie Roche, Vice-President Garda Síochána Retired Members Association. Lord Edward’s Own Re-enactment Group will re-create the handover of the old Royal Irish Constabulary Station to the Civic Guard/An Garda Siochána. The Garda Band will then lead a march to the site of the former Artillery Barracks. Kildare Town Garda Barracks will host an open day for members of the public with vintage cars on display in the carpark. Tom O’Neill, curator of a unique collection of police memorabilia, will host an exhibition in the old Courthouse, while Lord Edward’s Own Re-enactment Group will give a display of weaponry and uniforms of the period in the courtyard. Walking tours of the town, facilitated by Kildare Town Heritage Centre, will be led by former Garda, P. J. Hester. Events in Co. Kildare in 1922 played a significant and pivotal role in the development of the future role and character of An Garda Siochána. At a government meeting on 10 April Eamonn Duggan, T.D., had suggested that Kildare Artillery Barracks would be suitable as a depot for the new Irish police force – the Civic Guard. On 15 April 1922, an advance party of Civic Guard left the R.D.S. showgrounds at Ballsbridge, Dublin, and travelled by train to Kildare Town. On reaching Kildare the party marched from the railway station to the Artillery Barracks where they accepted the handover of the garrison from the departing British troops. The Local Studies, Genealogy and Archives Department of Kildare County Library is facilitating this event. Please contact [email protected] for further details. The global 1922: Local sites, global contexts hosted by King’s College London (online) Thursday 28th and Friday 29th April 2022 (Online) The year 2022 marks the centenary of the end of Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1922. This war was one of the final conflicts of a decade-long series of wars to which historians have referred to as the ‘Greater War’ decade. The Greek-Turkish war coincided with the end of the many conflicts and diplomatic or political processes that transformed eastern Europe and Russia as well as the near and middle East. It also marked an acute humanitarian crisis following the dislocation of minority populations across the Aegean Sea – one of the largest single population transfers of the Greater War decade. Using the Greek-Turkish conflict as a starting point, this international conference brings together scholars working in various historical subfields to reflect on the wider context of nationalist agitations, state-building processes, imperial transformations and socio-economic upheavals across lands and seas in flux from Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, European and Asian Russia to the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. DETAILS HERE 2. Exhibitions/Projects The ‘Decade of Centenaries’ All Island History Competition for Primary and Post-Primary Schools 2021/2022 DETAILS HERE ‘Intervals of Peace’: The Civil War Prison Art of Alfred McGloughlin A new exhibition of previously unseen Civil War portraits in Kilmainham Gaol Museum 31 March to 25 October 2022 ‘INTERVALS OF PEACE’ a brand new exhibition of previously unseen Civil War portraits by prisoner and artist Alfred McGloughlin. The exhibition opened on Thursday, 31 March and will run to Tuesday, 25 October 2022 at Kilmainham Gaol Museum, Dublin. On 21 October 1922, several months into the Irish Civil War, Alfred McGloughlin was arrested in his home by Free State forces and brought to Wellington Barracks in Dublin. He spent the following year as a political prisoner, first in Wellington Barracks, then Hare Park in the Curragh, before a final stay in Mountjoy Prison from where he was released on 13 October 1923. Although he was an active supporter of the Anti-Treaty side, he was never charged with a specific offence. He experienced periods of severe ill-treatment during his incarceration but, as mentioned in his obituary in 1932, he also found ‘intervals of peace in prison, sketching in watercolours, and filling a portfolio with pencil-drawings of his comrades’. 39 portraits and watercolour sketches of Mountjoy by Alfred McGloughlin will go on public display for the first time in Kilmainham Gaol in a special exhibition to mark the centenary of the Civil War. Alfred McGloughlin was the nephew of 1916 leaders Patrick and William Pearse and grew up in the Pearse household. He later helped in the running of Patrick Pearse’s school, Scoil Éanna. He went on to become a draughtsman with J & C McGloughlin Ltd., a decorative metalwork business owned by his father’s family, and studied art part-time in the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. McGloughlin also developed an interest in theatre where he wrote and performed in numerous plays. He joined the Irish Volunteers and was involved in the Howth gun-running of 1914. He was Sinn Féin’s director of elections in south Dublin for the 1918 and 1921 elections and stood as a candidate himself during the local elections of 1920. Following his release from prison he set up his own building company. When this business failed, he obtained a position as a draughtsman with the Office of Public Works. He remained active as a political journalist, and was a regular contributor to the republican newspaper ‘An Phoblacht’. His health never recovered from his time in prison and he died from heart disease aged just 44 in 1932. DETAILS HERE ‘Burning the Big House: The Story of the Irish Country House in Revolution 1920-1923’ ‘Burning the Big House: The Story of the Irish Country House in Revolution 1920-1923’…. A new exhibition and online lecture series for the Decade of Centenaries Programme, launched by Minister Martin. The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD, launched ‘Burning the Big House: The Story of the Irish Country House in Revolution, 1920-1923’, a new exhibition curated by Professor Terence Dooley Director of the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates (CSHIHE), History Department, at Maynooth University, with support from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. This engaging exhibition is the culmination of years of research work by Professor Dooley. It introduces a new perspective to the Decade of Centenaries Programme – the experiences of the Irish aristocracy or former landed elite who found themselves caught up in the War of Independence and the Civil War. Seen through the prism of the burning of country houses, more generally referred to in Ireland as the Big Houses, the exhibition will present the stories of a broad sample of these Big Houses from across the country. It is the product of original research based on a wide variety of primary sources, challenging many commonly held misconceptions about this period in history. The exhibition will explore the extent and geographical location of Big Houses burned, examining the political and social motivations for destruction. It will also address why many houses were not destroyed. The exhibition will explore the national context for these events and the impact of the Land Acts on the country houses. The exhibition will be showcased in the Irish Architectural Archive in Dublin until 27 April, when it will relocate to Maynooth University in time for the 20th Annual Historic Irish Houses Conference (10-11 May). It will then tour various locations around the country. When the exhibition run concludes, it will be digitised and made freely available online for everyone, on the CSHIHE, Maynooth University website. A free, weekly lecture series will be held online from 24th March to 19th May, in conjunction with the exhibition (the lecture series is fully booked). This launch included that of Professor Terence Dooley’s new publication ‘Burning the Big House: The Story of the Irish Country House in a Time of War and Revolution’ by Yale University Press (see Publication section below). 3. Podcasts Northern Ireland in 1922 While an uneasy peace prevailed in the South following the Truce of July 1921, in Northern Ireland communal violence continued to rage, exemplified most notoriously on 24 March 1922 by the killings of a ‘respectable’ Catholic family, the McMahons, by an RIC ‘murder gang’. Was this a ‘one-off’ by a ‘rogue’ element or part of a wider policy of intimidation? And as the Treaty split drifted towards civil war in the South, how did events in the North and along the border affect the situation? To discuss these and related questions, join History Ireland editor Tommy Graham in discussion with Kieran Glennon, Paddy Mulroe, Seán Bernard Newman and Margaret O’Callaghan. Image: The funerals of the victims of the McMahon murders in Belfast on 26th March 1922. LISTEN HERE ‘We English protest’—anti-colonial solidarity in the metropole LISTEN HERE So said the long white apron of suffragette and socialist Margaret Buckmaster at a protest in July 1921 organised by the Peace with Ireland Council (PIC). How significant were such anti-colonial solidarity movements in Britain in the revolutionary period? How effective were they? To address these and related questions, join History Ireland editor Tommy Graham in discussion with Darragh Gannon, Angus Mitchell and Mo Moulton. LISTEN HERE A century of An Garda Síochána When the Civic Guard—later renamed An Garda Síochána—was founded in February 1922, the force it replaced, the Royal Irish Constabulary, was itself barely a century old. How much of the culture of the latter passed over to the former? What was the law-and-order situation in 1921/22? Why and how was it possible to set up an unarmed police force during a civil war? To address these and related questions, join History Ireland editor Tommy Graham in discussion with Elizabeth Malcolm, Fearghal McGarry and Liam McNiffe. Image: Eoin O’Duffy, second Commissioner of An Garda Síochána, following the May/June 1922 mutiny and the subsequent resignation of Michael Staines. LISTEN HERE 4. Publications AVAILABLE HERE AVAILABLE HERE AVAILABLE HERE AVAILABLE HERE Four Courts Press Revolution Series MORE DETAILS HERE AVAILABLE HERE This book illustrates the 1922 handover of power by the outgoing British administration to the Provisional Government of Ireland led by Michael Collins in early 1922. The handover fell between the Treaty split of January 1922 and the outbreak of the Civil War in June 1922 and is usually overshadowed by both. The book bridges this gap by telling a relatively unfamiliar but hugely important story. BUY HERE Ireland 1922 provides a snapshot of a year of turmoil, tragedy and, amidst it all, state-building as the Irish revolution drew to a close. BUY HERE The fourth volume in the History Ireland commemorative series on aspects of the Irish Revolution. The Treaty, Civil War and partition profoundly shaped the Ireland in which we live. To mark the centenary of the Treaty and Civil War, History Ireland has produced a special supplement, The Split: From Treaty to Civil War 1921–23, featuring historians and writers. The Split introduces ground-breaking articles on women and the Treaty, the role of Eamon de Valera, the establishment of the Gardaí, the dead of the Civil War, the global reaction to Ireland’s independence, and the violence inside the new Northern Ireland state and along the border. It discusses controversial questions regarding Michael Collins and military dictatorship, why the Free State won the Civil War and how Northern Ireland came into being. It looks at how the war has been remembered and asks whether the era of Civil War politics has ended. Featuring contributions from:President Michael D. Higgins / David McCullagh / Mary McAuliffe / Rob Delaney / John Gibney / Kate O’Malley / Darragh Gannon / John Borgonovo / Lar Joye / Kieran Glennon / Paddy Mulroe / Charles Townsend / Bill Kissane / John M. Regan / Robert Gerwarth / Elizabeth Malcolm / Niamh Puirséil / Alison Martin / John Dorney / Margaret O’Callaghan / Ciara Chambers / Caitlin White / Frank Barry / Brian Hanley / Theo Dorgan Available in newsagents and bookshops, or online at the link below. BUY HERE |