December 2022
 December 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) Launch of new publication on the Civil War in North Kildare(Tomorrow, 1 December) Thursday 1st December @ 7pm A new publication Mullaney’s Men : the rise and fall of the anti-Treaty forces in North Kildare, Grangewilliam 1922 is being launched in Leixlip Library on Thursday 1 December at 7pm. This significant Civil War episode, the last major battle to have taken place in County Kildare, is often referred to as ‘The Battle of Pike’s Bridge’ and documents events that took place across a wide geographic area in North Kildare and surrounding counties in late 1922. This publication is written by local historian Seamus Cummins (who will speak on his research at the launch) and edited by Local Studies, Genealogy & Archives staff member and historian James Durney. A limited number of copies will be available at the launch while this publication will also be available to the wider community through the Kildare Library Service branch library network and also will be published online along with other Decade of Commemorations publications on the Library website: Kildare Library Service – Decade of Commemorations (kildarecoco.ie) REGISTER HERE Building As Witness Open Call Project Awards (DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS: 2 December 2022) Crawford Art Gallery is committed to exploring shared histories and to exploratory practice. Up to six project awards are now available as part of the major research project, Building as Witness (6 December 2021 – 17 April 2024). Creative practitioners are invited to apply for one of these €12,000 project awards to develop creative responses that engage with Crawford Art Gallery’s buildings and environs from one hundred years ago. MORE DETAILS HERE Foundation of the Irish Free State Conference, UCD 2022 Friday 2 Dec: UCD O’Reilly Hall and Saturday 3 December: UCD FitzGerald Debating Chamber Format: hybrid – in-person, and streaming online All are welcome. Tickets are free but pre-booking is essential The Taoiseach Mícheál Martin will deliver a keynote address at 9:30am, Fri 2 DecOn Friday 2 and Saturday 3 December 2022 UCD will host a national conference as part of the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023, marking one hundred years since the foundation of the Irish State. This major two-day conference seeks to explore the process of state formation amid an ongoing civil war and uncertainty over the future of the border with Northern Ireland, the evolution of the institutions of the state since 1922, and the challenges that state, society, and citizenry faced a century ago. The aim of this conference is to inform and stimulate wider public discourse on this key event in the history of Irish independence and statehood. REGISTER HERE 1922 Constitution Centenary Conference Monday, 5 December 9am – 6pm To mark the centenary of Ireland’s first Constitution this conference brings together scholars of law, history and politics. DETAILS & BOOKING HERE The Centenary of the Foundation of the Irish State Voices from 6 December 1922 Talk by Dr Thomas Mohr, UCD School of LawHI Seminar Room H204Tuesday, 6th December 2022 @ 1.10pm This event will examine the events of 6 December 1922, the foundation date of the Irish State. It will do so by allowing the voices of those alive on that date to give their own impressions of this historic event. For many contemporaries the birth of the State was a miracle that fulfilled the dreams of generations of Irish people. For others, in particular opponents of the Anglo Irish Treaty signed in 1921, the events of 6 December 1922 were a source of disappointment and disillusion. Many Irish unionists greeted the birth of the State with mixed emotions as one order passed into history while another sprang into life. All who lived in the Ireland of 1922 had to face the challenges of civil war and partition.This event will allow voices drawn from contemporary newspapers, journals, cartoons and other sources to convey their own impressions of the birth of the Irish State. The birth of the State provided a unique opportunity for contemporaries to reflect on the Irish past but also on the future that lay ahead of the infant State. How accurate were these visions of the future? How closely do they resemble the Irish State of 6 December 2022? This event will present perspectives from 1922 while encouraging those in attendance to decide these matters for themselves. The Decade of Commemoration: Sources & Legacies Tuesday, 6 December 6-7.30pm An exploration of some archival projects and commemorative events undertaken during the Decade of Centenaries (1913-1923) This webinar draws together a number of Archivists and Librarians who have been actively engaged in new and recent projects working with records, collections, and archives from the years comprising the Decade of Commemorations in Ireland (1913-1923). DETAILS & BOOKING HERE Monday, 12 December from 7.15pm A public community event is being organised as part of the Decade of Commemorations programme to mark the centenary of the execution of seven anti-Treaty men in late December 1922. This event is taking place in association with Cill Dara Historical Society and Milltown Heritage Group. It marks the largest single day execution to take place during the entire Irish Civil War. This event is taking place in the Curragh Racecourse on onwards. All welcome, where historians Mario Corrigan and James Durney will give a historical presentation on the events of 100 years ago and activities of the Rathbride Column. Co Louth Cumann na mBan & the Civil War Friday, 16 December @ 3pm Ailbhe Rogers will talk on this topic in conversation with LCC Historican in Residence Dr Thomas Tormey in Dundalk Library, on Friday, the 1 of December at 3pm. All are welcome, no booking is required. This talk will be available to view online on Crowdcast. Click either by QR code or follow link below to save your space. DETAILS HERE 2. Exhibitions/Projects Records for Compensation Claims A series of files consisting of claims for damages by individuals for injuries or death during the War of Independence or Civil War have been transferred from the Department of Finance to the National Archives (today, 30 November). Work will now begin on these files preparing them for public release in April 2023. MORE DETAILS HERE 3. Podcasts COMING SOON Marú in Íarthar Chorcaí (Murder in West Cork) Marú in Íarthar Chorcaí (Murder in West Cork) TG4, 9.30pm, Wednesday 7 December Over two nights in April 1922, thirteen Protestant men were shot dead in West Cork. According to Peter Hart’s 1998 book The IRA and its enemies, they were shot because they were Protestants— sectarian killings carried out by members of the IRA—and ‘the nationalist revolution had also been a sectrian one’. Hart’s controversial conclusions sparked a ‘history war’ that has raged ever since. Prior to the programme being aired, History Ireland editor Tommy Graham will discuss the documentary with Brian Hanley, Simon Kingston, Eve Morrison and Jerry O’Callaghan. The podcast will be available wherever you usually get your podcasts (Spotify, Apple) Brian Hanley is Assistant Professor in Twentieth-Century Irish History at Trinity College, Dublin, and author of Republicanism, crime and paramilitary policing in Ireland, 1916–2020 (Cork University Press, 2022). Simon Kingston is co-founder of the West Cork History Festival. Eve Morrison is Visiting Research Fellow in the Centre for Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College, Dublin, and author of Kilmichael: the life and afterlife of an ambush (Irish Academic Press, 2022). Jerry O’Callaghan is the producer (with Michael Heney) and presenter of Marú in Íarthar Chorcaí. HISTORY IRELAND PODCAST CHANNEL Donegal in the Civil War Donegal in the Civil War While not in the vanguard of the War of Independence, Donegal became the scene of the last standup fight between the IRA (pro- and anti-Treaty) and British military (in the ‘Pettigo triangle’), with the latter using heavy artillery for the first time in Ireland since 1916.On the outbreak of the Civil War some of these IRA men, originally mobilised for the now-aborted ‘Northern offensive’, were caught up in the hostilities that followed. Four of them were subsequently executed, the only four executions to take place in the county.To discuss these and related questions join History Ireland editor Tommy Graham in conversation with Adrian Grant, Breandán MacSuibhne and Pauric Travers. Image above: ‘Found in Pettigo’—a Lancia armoured car captured by the IRA in May 1922 and later recaptured by British forces. LISTEN HERE Irish Travellers and the State, 1922-2022— activism, advocacy and allyship How have Irish Travellers fared since the foundation of the state a century ago, and in particular since the 1963 Report of the Commission on Itinerancy?What are the challenges facing the current generation of Traveller activists?How can non-Travellers be effective allies?To address these and related questions, join History Ireland editor, Tommy Graham, in discussion with Martin Collins, Rose Marie Maughan, and Patrick Nevin. LISTEN HERE Mná 100 (from earlier in 2022) “Seeking Peace” – a new episode in the Mná 100 podcast series – in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs This podcast examines events of 100 years ago and women’s participation in seeking peace – from chairing the Peace Committee meetings in May to delegations organised in June and July 1922 as hostilities in the Civil War escalated. It explores the historic background to those delegations, profiling some of the participants. Maud Gonne MacBride organised delegations. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Charlotte Despard and Rosamond Jacob of the Irishwomen’s International League participated. It also explores the League’s links to the wider peace movement of that time, such as the role of Jane Addams and the organisation of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. LISTEN HERE Follow us! Twitter: @Centenaries Facebook: @decadeofcentenaries https://www.decadeofcentenaries.com c. Decade of Centenaries 2021 |