June 2023
 June 2023 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. Events/Lectures/Schemes (keep an eye out for registration & dates) Photographs as historical sources IN-PERSON, Temple Bar Wednesday 31 May @ 7pm Photographs as historical sources Are historians visually illiterate? Does colourisation bring old photographs to life or is it just a passing fad? ‘Coffee-table’ history books—good or bad? In conjunction with the ongoing ‘People & Places: Ireland in the 19th & 20th centuries’ exhibition at the National Photographic Archive, these are some of the questions that will be posed by editor, Tommy Graham, to Sarah-Anne Buckley (University of Galway), Emily Mark Fitzgerald (UCD), and Sara Smyth (exhibition curator, National Library of Ireland). This Hedge School is supported by the National Library of Ireland. This is an in-person event which is free to attend. National Photographic Archive, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 D02 WF85@ 7pm Ireland in 1923 Dublin City Council Historian in Residence Cormac Moore will hold a 5-part lecture series ‘Ireland in 1923’. In-person at Pearse Street Library every Tuesdays at 6:30pm, starting May 30. Talk will also be live-streamed. Free registration, but limited capacity. E: [email protected] Liam Lynch: to declare a Republic Historian Gerry Shannon outlines the life of Liam Lynch, anti-Treaty IRA Chief of Staff during the Civil War & one of the most important revolutionary figures of early 20th century Ireland. Wednesday, 7th June @ 7pm Áras Uí Chonghaile A forgotten confict? Political violence on the Border in 1922, and its legacy Monaghan County Museum 2. Exhibitions/Projects Exhibition: Window on the Irish soul –100 years of Irish stamps ‘Window on the Irish soul’ is a new exhibition at the Royal Irish Academy in collaboration with An Post Museum and Archive celebrating 100 years of Irish stamps and displaying material from the heritage collections of both institutions. The exhibition features one of the earliest stamp albums – a unique collection of Irish revenue stamps collated in 1774. It also compliments a digital collaboration between An Post and the Royal Irish Academy in late 2022, which culminated in an online exhibition to commemorate the centenary anniversary of the Anglo-Irish Treaty when the newly independent Irish Post Office issued the first official Irish stamp – the well-known twopenny green Map of Ireland design. The exhibition is free to visit, and available to view in the Meeting Room of the Royal Irish Academy until 28 July 2023. Open Monday to Friday 10:00 – 17:00 and no booking required. More information here. FULL DETAILS HERE ‘hearts ne’er waver’: The Women Prisoners of the Irish Civil War AND Voices, an exhibition of works by Margo McNulty OPW presents two new exhibitions in Kilmainham Gaol Museum on the experiences of women prisoners duringthe Irish Civil War *30 May 2023 to 30 April 2024* The Office of Public Works (OPW) at Kilmainham Gaol Museum presents two special exhibitions to mark the centenary of the imprisonment of over 600 women during the Irish Civil War. ‘hearts ne’er waver’ explores the experiences of women imprisoned between November 1922 and December 1923 in Mountjoy Prison, Kilmainham Gaol and a special female political prison camp set up in the former North Dublin Union in Grangegorman. The exhibition tells stories of hunger strikes, forced removals and escape attempts, as well as prison concerts, fancy dress parties and games of rounders played in the prison yards using a chair-leg as a bat. Among the items on display are prison letters, diaries and autograph books, as well as items made by the women during their imprisonment such as a crocheted blouse, an embroidered pyjama case and a significant body of work created by the artist Grace Gifford Plunkett. She found herself a prisoner in Kilmainham Gaol in 1923, having previously married her husband Joseph Plunkett in the prison chapel the night before his execution in the Gaol following the 1916 Rising. One of the highlights of the exhibition is a tricolour featuring the emblem of Cumann na mBan which was made in Kilmainham Gaol by a group of women prisoners from Carlow. In the years that followed this flag was used to drape the coffins of these women as well as other veterans of the struggle for independence in Carlow. Following extensive conservation work, this flag is on display for the first time in over twenty-five years. Running in parallel with ‘hearts ne’er waver’ is an exhibition of work by the artist Margo McNulty entitled ‘Voices’. This collection of paintings and prints hauntingly evokes the atmosphere of Kilmainham Gaol and offers glimpses of the personalities of the women prisoners incarcerated there during the Civil War. Much of the work is inspired by personal items that once belonged to the women prisoners which now survive in both public and private collections. In 2022 Margo McNulty was a recipient of the Decade of Centenaries Markievicz Award which is given by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media to artists involved in the commemoration of the role of women during the Irish Revolutionary period. The exhibition will be launched Tuesday 30 May at 6pm by Professor Laura McAtackney from the Radical Humanities Laboratory and School of Archaeology at University College, Cork. Among her many research projects, she undertook a close and systematic survey of the graffiti in Kilmainham Gaol, much of which relates to the women held there in 1923. MORE DETAILS HERE ‘To the Letter Extended exhibition run until 7th June Exhibition held at the Seán O’Casey Community Centre Award-winning artist and theatre designer Dolores Lyne is marking the centenary of her grand-uncle Liam Lynch, Chief of Staff of the Anti-Treaty IRA, with an exhibition inspired by a trove of personal letters written by Liam to his brother Tom, the confidant in whom he felt safe, writing unique letters that covered the most dramatic and tragic events of Lynch’s life in the War of Independence and the Civil War. Dolores followed the letters back to the locations where they were written, visiting the remote and beautiful hill farms, the safe houses that provided sanctuary where Liam was protected and cherished. She met the descendants of those who had sheltered him, and they shared their stories with her; retracing his steps brought her closer to understanding him. Works on canvas, the paintings focus on incidents and stories drawn from the brothers’ correspondence. The letters are brought to life, referencing real places and people only hinted at or concealed behind initials, decoding at last the real addresses, the people who opened their homes and their hearts. There is an emphasis on the landscape and memories, of hill communities and the story of rural resistance. According to Dolores: ‘There’s the public Liam but these are private letters. They provided me with the spark for a personal, non-political contemplation of his last years, the places where he stayed and the people who looked after him. It’s my creative response, as an artist.’ In her research visits Dolores was greatly assisted by local communities and expert historians across Cork, Waterford and Tipperary who generously gave their time to show her the secret places of the struggle. ‘To The Letter’ will be presented in the The Sean O’Casey Theatre/Community Centre. Filled with Dolores Lyne’s exciting new works it will be a dramatic space to encounter these important paintings, and a powerful exploration of history. The exhibition is a commission by Cork County Arts and Heritage Offices, supported by Library and Art Service and Commemorations Committee of Cork County Council. Seán O’Casey Community Centre The Civil War Project The final index in this project has just been released: maps & articles by Diarmaid Ferriter, Gavin Foster, Brian Hanley, Gerard Shannon, Síobhra Aiken & Eve Morrison explore the end of the Civil War and its legacies. FULL DETAILS HERE Digital Collections Cork Revolutionary Period 1912-1923 Cork Archives have an extensive collection digitised, and more that can be viewed in person in their research room. FULL DETAILS HERE 3. Podcasts Memorialising the Civil War Memorialising the Civil War How was the Civil War memorialized—by both sides? Who won the ‘memory war’? To address these and other questions listen to History Ireland editor, Tommy Graham, in discussion with Conor Dodd, John Dorney, Mary McAuliffe and Caitlin White. This Hedge School is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries 2012-2023 initiative and by Phibsborough Community Arts Festival (Phizzfest). Recorded @ Phizzfest 23 12 May 23, Glasnevin Cemetery Museum LISTEN HERE The RDS Podcast The Military Archives: a history Episode from the Library Speaker Series Recorded in the RDS Library as part of The Dublin Book Festival 2022, History Ireland editor Tommy Graham interviews Commandant Daniel Ayiotis, director of the Military Archives in Cathal Brugha Barracks, and Zoe Reid, keeper of public services and collections at the National Archives. In this interview, Graham asks Reid about her book concerning her curation of an exhibition about the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations in 1921 (The Treaty, 1921: Records from the Archives). Ayiotis then explains about his book The Military Archives: A History which examines the National Army from its foundation in 1922 up until the present day. The Treaty, 1921: Records from the Archives The Military Archives: A History Follow us! Twitter: @Centenaries Facebook: @decadeofcentenaries https://www.decadeofcentenaries.com c. 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