The Challenge

The Atlas of the Irish Civil War: New Perspectives (2024) is a joint project of the School of History and the Department of Geography, produced in partnership with the National Library of Ireland. It builds on the success of the Atlas of the Irish Revolution (2017), which sought to illuminate, in an inclusive and accessible manner, military, political, economic, social, demographic and cultural phenomena in the pivotal years from the beginning of the Home Rule Crisis in 1912 to the end of the Civil War in 1923.

Underpinned by the same guiding principles and viewed through a similar cartographic lens, the principal challenge for the editors of this complementary volume was to introduce fresh perspectives on how the Civil War battle lines were drawn and crossed, and how the conflict was perceived, presented and remembered.

The Atlas showcases the fruits of new research by more than ninety scholars, including members of the UCC editorial team, whose work has pushed Civil War historiography beyond simplistic dichotomies, the study of key protagonists and basic chronologies of armed conflict, and arrived at more nuanced and inclusive treatments of that complex period. As President Michael D. Higgins put it in his foreword, ‘This is a work that was necessary and will be welcomed as going a long way to fill a significant gap in Irish historiography’.

The Research

In the seven years since the publication of the Atlas of the Irish Revolution, scholars have reaped the benefits of newly released or digitised archival sources, which facilitated wider and deeper consideration of the military and political aspects of the conflict, as well as the personal and local lived experience and the struggle for survival long after the guns were silenced. These and myriad other themes are considered in the Atlas, which comprises thirteen core chapters, eighteen case studies, and scores of short essays provided by over ninety contributors from the fields of geography, history, art history, archaeology, memory studies, political science, literary and gender studies.

The identification and contextualisation of hundreds of archival images was an integral part of the research but, like previous atlases, the maps are the book’s critical research tool, capturing both the temporal and spatial dimensions of the conflict and its many impacts. Perhaps most notable is the series of maps that detail and contextualise, for the first time, the combatant and civilian fatalities between June 1922 and May 1923.

The publication was the second strand of the two- strand Atlas of the Irish Civil War Project supported by the Government of Ireland under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2023. The first strand - the Irish Civil War Fatalities Research Project - conducted by PI Andy Bielenberg - yielded not only the names of the conflict-related fatalities but also a unique social survey of the Civil War dead and the temporal and spatial patterns of the fatalities. In the absence of a physical memorial to the men and women, civilians and combatants who died during the Civil War, the full index of names compiled on the centenary of their deaths and published in the Atlas is a timely and necessary memorial.

The Impact

The Atlas of the Irish Civil War: New Perspectives (2024) is the latest in Cork University Press’ pioneering and widely celebrated Atlas ‘History trilogy’, which is now regarded in a university context as a highly successful exemplar of public scholarship and engagement.

The extraordinary impact is due to accessibility and reach of the trilogy and the associated outreach and online projects, which facilitated unprecedented public engagement with UCC scholarship in the arts and humanities. The many outputs of the Atlas project – and the contribution of the Atlas team to public events, conferences, and television and radio documentaries - influenced and informed local and national commemorative activity during the Decade of Centenaries, 2012-23.

Having already sold over 10,000 copies, the newest Atlas won the inaugural An Post History Book of the Year in 2024. At the UCC launch in October 2024, Dr Maurice Manning observed, ‘I have launched many books over my career, and I can say this ranks as almost certainly the finest. The finest in its courage in tackling head on issues hitherto ignored or evaded, the finest in its editorial and production values and the finest in the comprehensive range of issues covered.’

The wider Atlas of the Irish Civil War research and public engagement project (2022-2024) included an on-line Civil War Project in partnership with RTÉ History that attracted over half a million unique visitors in its first year; an eight-week on-line lecture series in partnership with the National Library of Ireland; the Irish Civil War National Conference in UCC, a three-part TV documentary series that was broadcast on RTÉ television and a number of international broadcasters, including ARTE and PBS; and the Civil War Fatalities Project.

The findings of the Irish Civil War Fatalities Project were presented in a central chapter in the Atlas and on a dedicated UCC website, which has received 25,000 visitors since its launch in April 2024. Visitors can feely access a groundbreaking interactive map of the Civil War fatalities as well as contextualising essays by twenty Civil War historians. A variation on the index features on the RTÉ History website and is another example of the multiple technology transfer achievements of the overall project, whereby UCC research is made available and accessible to a worldwide audience.

The online Fatalities project is a vital tool for looking objectively at this complex period in Irish history and will help researchers trace both the wider patterns of the conflict and the very real cost to individuals. It provides accessible, accurate data – filling in gaps in our knowledge about the Civil War – while also offering invaluable support for people seeking, in Dr Maurice Manning’s words, ‘to navigate their own personal commemorative paths’.

When the Atlas of the Irish Civil War completed the history trilogy in 2024, Minister for Culture, Catherine Martin described the ‘engaging, innovative and highly accessible outcomes’ of the Atlas project supported by her department, as ‘exactly the kind of new and permanent resources that the Expert Advisory Group and Government hoped would emerge as an enduring legacy of the commemorative programme’.

More Information

Atlas Research Team

Dr John Crowley and Mike Murphy (Department of Geography), Dr Donal Ó Drisceoil and Dr John Borgonovo (School of History), Dr Hélène O’Keeffe (CACSSS Research)

Irish Civil War Fatalities Project

Dr Andy Bielenberg, John Dorney, Mike Murphy, Hélène O’Keeffe, John Crowley, Charlie Roche

Links

The Irish Revolution website

https://www.ucc.ie/en/theirishrevolution/ RTE/UCC

Irish Civil War Project RTÉ

https://www.rte.ie/history/2022/0106/1272236-about- the-civil-war-project/

Irish Civil War Fatalities Project UCC

https://www.ucc.ie/en/theirishrevolution/irish-civil- war-fatalities-project/ 

Irish Civil War Fatalities, RTE

https://www.rte.ie/history/civil-war-fatalities/

The Irish Civil War National Conference, UCC

https://www.ucc.ie/en/theirishrevolution/irish-civil-war-national-conference-june-2022/

“The Civil War, perhaps the most traumatic phase of the Irish revolution, is at last being studied with the careful objectivity it requires. This comprehensive, skilfully designed and superbly produced volume – approachable as well as scholarly – provides an ideal survey. It should be widely read.

- Charles Townshend, historian and author

This superb publication is a model of interdisciplinary scholarship and a magisterial contribution to our understanding of a defining event in modern Irish history.

- Maurice Manning

This is now a formidable series of books which presents Irish history and geography with imagination, innovation, scholarship and engagement.

-Catriona Crowe, The Irish Times 

Cover Image: The Atlas Research Team and representatives from Cork University Press present the ‘Atlas of the Irish Civil War: New Perspectives’ to President Michael D. Higgins, January 2025