History Ireland Podcasts
History, memory and Bloody Sunday 1920
The events of Sunday 21 November 1920 are well named. Within fifteen hours on that fateful day, 32 people died: in the morning, eleven British intelligence officers killed by Michael Collins’s ‘squad’ (plus two Auxiliaries and two civilians); in the afternoon, fourteen civilians killed by British forces at Croke Park (including player Michael Hogan of…
Read MoreBelfast and the North 1920-22
As the War of Independence raged in southern Ireland a different type and more deadly form of conflict erupted in the northeast, and in Belfast in particular. Should this be considered part of the overall Irish revolution? Or a separate and distinct conflict with its roots in the sectarian geography of city? What was the…
Read MoreBloody Sunday 1920—the Tipperary Connection
Founded in Thurles in 1884, the GAA has had a long association with Tipperary, an association intensified by the events of Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920, when Crown forces attacked a Dublin vs Tipperary football match at Croke Park. Three of the fourteen victims were from Tipperary, including, famously, the only player killed on the…
Read MoreCommemorating Bloody Sunday in the Junior Cycle history classroom
In the early morning of Sunday 21 November 1920 units of Dublin’s IRA assassinated 11 suspected British intelligence agents; two Auxiliaries and two civilians were also killed. That afternoon Crown forces opened fire on the crowd at a Dublin vs Tipperary football match in Croke Park, killing 14 people. Later that evening senior IRA officers…
Read MoreThe West’s awake!–Revolution in Roscommon 1916-1921
Roscommon was one of the first counties to reflect the ‘utter change’ of the post-1916 period, with the election of the first Sinn Féin-backed MP in February 1917. In less than two years that party would win a landslide victory in the general election of 1918, but that mandate for independence was ignored by the…
Read More‘In Mountjoy Jail one Monday morning…’—the Irish Revolution in ballad and song
Kevin Barry is one of the most popular, and certainly one of the most sung, of Irish ballads. But who was Kevin Barry? Why was he immortalized in song? And what has been the significance of the ballad tradition generally in the Irish Revolution and, indeed, of the Irish Revolution in the ballad tradition? Listen…
Read MoreNenagh and North Tipperary during the revolutionary decade
Having considered the ‘global’ impact of the Irish revolution in a previous podcast (The Irish Republic abroad in 1920—Dev in America), this Hedge School zooms in on the ‘local’—the market town of Nenagh and the surrounding North Tipperary area during the revolutionary decade—but also sets events in the wider national context. Listen to Tommy Graham,…
Read More‘Eye of the storm?’ – Dublin and the War of Independence
Seat of Crown administration since the twelfth century, and still bearing the physical scars of the 1916 Rising, during the War of Independence Dublin was also GHQ of the IRA and the location of the underground Dáil administration. To find out how the conflict played out between the two sides join History Ireland editor, Tommy…
Read More‘Better a state without public records than public records without a state’?— state formation, archives and commemoration’
‘Better a state without public records than public records without a state’?— state formation, archives and commemoration’ So said Winston Churchill in reference to the Irish Free State on hearing news of the destruction of the Public Records Office in the Four Courts in June 1922 at the outbreak of the Civil War. But in…
Read MoreThe Irish Republic abroad in 1920—Dev in America
While the War of Independence raged in Ireland, a parallel international diplomatic campaign for recognition and funding for the underground Irish Republic was being waged. Central to this was the tour of Eamon de Valera, ‘President of the Irish Republic’, to the United States from June 1919 to December 1920. To assess its success…
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