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Full Conference Proceedings

Day 1: Wednesday 15 June

Conference Welcome and Plenary Papers 
Location: Aula Maxima, UCC

 

Conference Welcome 

  • Opening: Dr Helene O’Keeffe, Atlas of the Irish Revolution Project, UCC
  • Dr Mervyn O’Driscoll, Head of the School of History, UCC

Civil Wars and the Making of Europe's Twentieth-Century (22:15 - 1:01:51)

  • Professor Robert Gerwarth, Professor of Modern History at University College, Dublin and Director of the Centre for War Studies
  • Session Chair: Prof Chris Williams, Head of the College of Arts, Celtic Studies, and Social Sciences, UCC

Opening Address 

  • Lord Mayor of Cork, Councillor Colm Kelleher

Opening Address (1:56:31 - 2:37:56)

  • Professor John O’Halloran, President of University College Cork
  • An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin TD

"The War in Spain" : European civil wars, 1917-47 through the prism of Spain (2:40:04 - 3:32:00)

  • Professor Helen Graham, Professor of Spanish History, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Session Chair: Dr Helena Buffery, Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, UCC

Civil War: Ancient Fears, Contemporary Realities (3:33:50 - 4:24:37)

  • Dr Bill Kissane, Reader in Politics, London School of Economics
  • Session Chair: Dr Mervyn O'Driscoll, School of History, UCC
Panel A: The Irish Civil War and Global Comparisons
(5:28:05 - 6:50:07) 
  • Chair: Nadia Dobrianska (University College London)
  • Slimane Hargas (University of Lorraine/Université Sorbonne Paris Nord): The outcome of the Algerian revolution and the spectre of the Irish Civil War
  • Niall Buckley (TCD): Navigating Empire, Free State and Republic: The Catholic Church and Legitimisation of Irish and Austrian Sovereignty 1918-1925
  • Dr Andy Bielenberg (UCC): Comparing the Ukrainian and Irish Civil Wars
Panel C: The View from America
(7:05:36 - 8:35:55) 
  • Chair: Dr Miriam Nyhan Grey (NYU)
  • Dr Michael Doorley (The Open University): Justice Daniel Cohalan and Irish America’s response to the Irish Civil War
  • Georgina Sweetnam (Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council): The Joseph McGrath Papers, 1920-1930
  • Des Dalton (Independent): Arms and ideology: Joe McGarrity, Clan na Gael and the ‘Treaty Split’ in Transatlantic Republicanism  

Wednesday | Afternoon Session 1 | Boole 4  

Panel B: Great Britain and Her Empire

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Panel D: Imperial Implications

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Panel B: Great Britain and Her Empire
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  • Chair: Dr Jerome Aan de Wiel (UCC)
  • Pádraig King (Independent): The Liverpool IRA in the Irish Civil War
  • Dr Mary MacDiarmada (DCU): ‘De Valera’s Man in London’: Art O’Brien and the impact of republican activity in Britain 1922/1923
  • Eoin Hahessy (UCC): The Archbishop & Dev: Catholicism and nationalism in the Irish diaspora during Ireland's civil war period
 
Panel D: Imperial Implications
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  • Chair: Dr Conor Mulvagh (UCD)
  • Dr Jerome Aan de Wiel (UCC): French military intelligence and Ireland, 1919-1923: From the Peace Conference to the Civil War
  • Dr Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh (St Mary’s University College Belfast): Charlie Daly and the significance of partition in the genesis of civil war
  • Gerry White (Independent): The Occupation of Victoria Barracks, Cork, 18 May 1922: A Compromise that Failed
 

Day 2: Thursday 16 June

The second day of the conference showcased short paper responses to the conference call for papers. These 20-minute papers were presented in 80-minute panel sessions, comprised of established academics, emerging scholars and specialist speakers addressing multiple aspects of the Civil War. The short-paper parallel sessions were steamed live and recorded using UCC's Panopto cloud video platform. While the quality is not as professional as the Day 1 or Day 4 proceedings in the Aula Maxima, the recordings nonetheless provide a valuable record of the thirty, eighty-minute sessions on multiple aspects of the history and legacy of the Irish Civil War. 

Thursday | Morning Session 1  |  9:30 - 10:50 

Panel E: Party Politics

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Panel F: The Southern Loyalist Experience

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Panel G: Truce Troubles

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Panel E: Party Politics 
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  • Chair: Dr Andrew McCarthy (UCC)
  • Dr Liam Weeks (UCC): More than words? Analysing the roots of the Irish party system using historical parliamentary debates
  • Dr Mícheál Ó Fathartaigh (NUI Galway): The Second Dáil before the Treaty Split: None of the Fissures that Might Be Expected
  • Dr Martin O’Donoghue (University of Sheffield): ‘Quite as ferocious as the Parnellite split’: the legacy of home rule and ‘Civil War politics'
Panel F: The Southern Loyalist Experience
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  • Chair: Dr Jay Roszman (UCC)
  • Dr Ian D’Alton (TCD): What did the Irish Civil War mean for Southern Protestants?
  • Dr Brian Hughes (Mary Immaculate College): Southern Irish loyalists as 'refugees', 1922–23
  • Barry Keane (Independent): Protestant decline in Ireland 1901-1926: abstracts from the census material
Panel G: Truce Troubles 
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  • Chair: Dr Gabriel Doherty (UCC)
  • Mark Bulik (New York Times): Easter Week, 1922: Cruxy Connors and Bloody Anniversaries
  • Dr Tom Mahon (Independent): 'The Fecking War is Over': The Capture of the Upnor and the Civil War
  • Ronan McGreevy (The Irish Times): Ireland's Sarajevo: How the assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson MP started the Civil War
 

Thursday | Morning Session 2 | 11:10 - 12:30

Panel H: Beyond 2022

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Panel I: Agrarian Unrest

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Panel J: Class and Labour Militancy

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Panel J1: Propaganda and Memory

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Panel H: Beyond 2022: the destruction and virtual reconstruction of the Public Records Office of Ireland 
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  • Chair: Dr Diarmuid Scully (UCC)
  • Dr Ciarán Wallace (TCD): Beyond 2022: The project and its methodology
  • Zoe Reid (National Archives of Ireland): Conserving the Saved Records of 1922
  • Dr Lynn Kilgallon (TCD): Beyond 1922: The Knowledge Graph for Irish history
Panel I: Agrarian Unrest
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  • Chair: Professor Maggie O’Neill (UCC)
  • Dr Tony Varley (NUI Galway): Agrarian Disturbances and State-building during the Irish Civil War
  • Adam Coleman (Maynooth University): The case of Runnamoat, Co. Roscommon. What can a case study of a big house burning reveal about social conflict during the Irish Civil War?
  • Fergal Browne (Independent): The killing of Eric Seymour Wolfe - Ringenane, Kinsale, December 1922
Panel J: Class and Labour Militancy  
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  • Chair: Dr Donal O Drisceoil (UCC)
  • Olivier Coquelin (University of Caen Normandy): The Fall of the Irish Soviets in the Civil War, 1922-23
  • Thomas Dillon (Independent): The Feale Fishery Case: The contention of private and public fishery rights on a County Kerry river 1921-1924
  • Dr Pat McCarthy (Military Historical Society of Ireland): The Special Infantry Corps and the Waterford Farm Labourers’ Strike of 1923
Panel J1: Propaganda and Memory  
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  • Chair: Dr Alan McCarthy (UCC)
  • Evelyn Flanagan (UCD): Catholic anti-Treaty propaganda within the Franciscan collection 
  • Prof. Colum Kenny (DCU): The Death and Character Assassination of Arthur Griffith  
 

Thursday | Afternoon Session 1 | 14:00 - 15:20 

Panel K: Crossing Borders

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Panel L: Civil War Archaeology and Material Culture

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Panel M: Civil War Lives

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Panel K: Crossing Borders
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  • Chair: Dr Ian d'Alton (TCD)
  • Dr Edward Burke (University of Nottingham): Donegal Loyalists and the Civil War: Fear, Adaptation and Resistance
  • Jack Traynor (QUB): ‘Who emulated the methods of Cromwell or the Years of 1798’: Northern soldiers in the National Army during the Irish Civil War, 1922-23 
Panel L: Civil War Archaeology and Material Culture
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  • Chair: Dr Colin Rynne (UCC)
  • Dr Marion Dowd (Atlantic Technological University): A Civil War hideout: archaeological investigations at Tormore Cave, Slievemore, Co. Sligo
  • Daniel Breen (Cork Public Museum): The Only Elephant in the Room? A Brief History of Collecting the Irish Civil War at Cork Public Museum
  • Helen O’Carroll (Kerry County Museum): Power to the People: The Building of the Thomas Ashe Memorial Hall in Tralee
Panel M: Civil War Lives  
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  • Chair: Rory O’Dwyer (UCC)
  • Cormac O’Malley (Independent): Ernie O’Malley and the Civil War
  • Dr Gerald Hanley (DCU): ‘I go forth now scarcely knowing whereto I go’: Cathal Brugha and the Civil War
  • Eugene Coyle (Independent): The Harry Boland Enigma
 

Day 3: Friday 17 June

The third day of the conference offered more short paper responses to the conference call for papers. These 20-minute papers were presented in 80-minute panel sessions, comprised of established academics, emerging scholars and specialist speakers addressing multiple aspects of the Civil War. The short-paper parallel sessions were steamed live and recorded using UCC's Panopto cloud video platform. While the quality is not as professional as the Day 1 or Day 4 proceedings in the Aula Maxima, the recordings nonetheless provide a valuable record of the thirty, eighty-minute sessions on multiple aspects of the history and legacy of the Irish Civil War.

Friday | Morning Session 1  |   9:20 - 10:40

Panel N: Republican Women Activists

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Panel O: Remembering and Memorialising

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Panel P: Internees

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Panel Q: Politics and Ideology

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Panel N: Republican Women Activists
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  • Chair: Dr Gemma Clark (Univ of Exeter)
  • Dr Lia Brazil (Oxford University): Humanizing the Civil War? The ICRC, republican women and international intervention in Ireland
  • Hilary Dully (Independent): ‘There is no fear of the future when we have such brave girls’; Anti-Treaty women, perception and reality in the Irish Civil War
Panel O: Remembering and Memorialising
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  • Chair: Dr Heather Laird (UCC)
  • Kieran Doyle (Independent): The stone is mightier than the pen - Understanding the power and role of the Irish Civil War memorials in Cork
  • Caitlin White (TCD): Civil War remembrance in the Irish Free State
  • Tony McGrath (Independent): Stone Never Refused Carving: A Study of Republican Memorials, 1919 – 1923
Panel P: Internees
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  • Chair: Dr Caoimhe Nic Dhaibheid (University of Sheffield)
  • Dr Anne-Marie McInerney (Dublin City Library): Internment during the Irish Civil War 
  • Úna Kavanagh (NUI Galway): Anti-Treaty internees' contributions to an autograph book from the Tintown Camp from 1923
  • Professor Stephen Kelly (Liverpool Hope University): Gerald Boland’s Civil War
Panel Q: Politics and Ideology
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  • Chair: Dr Sarah Anne Buckley (NUIG)
  • Prof Thomas Mohr (UCD): The Civil War and the 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State
  • Dr Sean Donnelly (Teesside University): Revolution and Nationalism in Treatyite Political Thought, 1891-1923 
  • Dr Aodh Quinlivan (UCC): The Zeal for Centralisation: Local Democracy as a Civil War Casualty
 

Friday | Morning Session 2  |   11:10 - 12:30         

Panel R: Ordinary Lives Trauma and Memory

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Panel S: Gendered Violence

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Panel T: Gender and Moral Formations

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Panel U: War, Fighting and The National Army

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Panel R: Ordinary Lives Trauma and Memory
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  • Chair: Prof Gavin Foster (Concordia Univ)
  • Owen O’Shea (UCD):We are near starving’: the traumatic legacy of the Civil War for the families of combatants in County Kerry 
  • Siobhán English (Mary Immaculate College): The Civil War dead and their dependents in East Limerick and South Tipperary
  • Cmdt Stephen MacEoin (Irish Defence Forces): Commemorating the National Army Dead 
Panel S: Gendered Violence
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  • Chair: Dr Maeve O’Riordan (UCC)
  • Dr Mary McAuliffe (UCD): 'Violence and indiscipline? The treatment of 'die hard' anti-treaty women by the National Army, 1922-1923
  • Dr John Regan (University of Dundee): New Perspectives of the Kenmare Incident and the Writing of History
Panel T: Gender and Moral Formations
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  • Chair: Dr Lia Brazil (Oxford University)
    Benedikt Grubesic (University of Graz): We were hungry, sick, wet and cold— Gendered experiences of internment and imprisonment during the Irish Civil War, 1922-1923
  • Cmdt Daniel Ayiotis (Military Archives): Moral Formations: Morality, Discipline and ‘Manly Loyalty to God’ in the National Army, 1922-1923
Panel U: War, Fighting and The National Army
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  • Chair: Gerry White
  • Dr Jack Kavanagh (Maynooth University): The creation and growth of the National Army, July-November 1922
  • Robert Delaney (Maynooth University/Irish Defence Forces): The 18-pounder field gun and the Irish Civil War
  • Lt Col. Gareth Prendergast (UCC/Irish Defence Forces): The National Army and the counter-insurgency campaign in Cork, 1922-23
 

Friday | Afternoon Session 1  |   13:50 – 15:10  

Panel V: Messaging, Media and Propaganda

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Panel W: The IRA and its Strategies

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Panel X: Roads Not Taken

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Panel Y: Cycles of Violence

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Panel V: Messaging, Media and Propaganda
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  • Chair: Dr Finola Doyle-O’Neill (UCC)
  • Dr Alan McCarthy (UCC): Muzzling the ‘Munster Republic’: Press Control and Propaganda in six southern counties, 1922-23
  • Felix Larkin (Independent): No uncertain voice: a cartoonist's perspective on the Irish civil war
  • Dr Jonathan Black (Kingston University): Amazon in the Four Courts: Clare Sheridan (1885-1970) and reporting the beginning of the Irish Civil War in Dublin, June 1922
Panel W: The IRA and its Strategies
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  • Chair: Dr Brian Hanley (TCD)
  • Prof Tim Hoyt (US Naval War College): Army Without Banners: The Strategy of the anti-Treaty IRA, 1922-1923
  • John Dorney (The Irish Story): 'A Peculiar form of warfare': Anti-Treaty guerrilla strategy and rival state formation projects, 1922-23
  • Karl Picard (Independent): The Demise of the Munster Republic: The Strategic Success of the Free State Offensive
Panel X: Roads Not Taken
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  • Chair: Dr Martin O’Donoghue (University of Sheffield)
  • Catherine Rooney (UCC): Liam Tobin: Major General and Mutineer
  • Gerard Shannon (Independent): ‘Our national policy is to maintain the established Republic’: Liam Lynch’s political and military strategies during the Irish Civil War
  • Samuel Beckton (Ulster University): The Unbroken Covenant: Could Ulster Unionists have controlled a nine-county state, 1920-1939?
Panel Y: Cycles of Violence
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  • Chair: Dr Brian Hughes (Mary Immaculate College)
  • Orson McMahon (Leiden University): The Violence of the Irish Civil War: Exaggeration or Understatement in County Kerry
  • Aaron Ó Maonaigh (DCU): The trajectory of revolutionary violence in Co. Wexford during the Civil War
 

Friday |  Afternoon Session 2  |  15:30 – 16:50  

Panel Z: The Military Service Pensions Collection

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Panel A1: The War in the Localities

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Panel B1: Cultural Implications

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Panel C1: Battlefields

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Panel Z: The Military Service Pensions Collection 
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  • Chair: Dr Donal O Drisceoil (UCC)
  • Leanne Ledwidge (Military Archives): Women in the Civil War
  • Sam McGrath (Military Archives): Civil War Fatalities
  • Robert McEvoy (Military Archives): Civil War Dependents
Panel A1: The War in the Localities
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  • Chair: Dr Mervyn O’Driscoll (UCC)
  • Dr Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc (Independent): Spies and Robbers Beware! – The IRA’s assassination of alleged spies during the Irish Civil War
  • Dr Thomas Earls Fitzgerald (Independent): 1922-23 and 1916-21: continuity or break?
  • Niall Murray (UCC): Béal na Bláth: A Crossroads in the Irish Revolution – The Mid-Cork Anti-Treaty IRA's return to urban conflict
 
 
Panel B1: Cultural Implications
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  • Chair: Dr Ailbhe McDaid (UCC)
  • Prof Brian (Breen) Ó Conchubhair (Notre Dame University): The Irish Language and the Civil War
  • Benjamin Ragan (Mary Immaculate College): The Paranormal in Memories of the Irish Civil War
  • Prof. Tim McGloughlin (University of Limerick): Intervals of Peace-the artistic journey of a Civil War Prisoner
Panel C1: Battlefields
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  • Chair: Dr Andy Bielenberg (UCC)
  • Liz Gillis (Champlain College): The Battle for Dublin
  • Frank Fagan (Independent): The Forgotten IRA Victory at Ballina, September 1922
  • Dr John O’Callaghan (Atlantic Technological University, Sligo): The Battle for Kilmallock
 
 

Day 4: Saturday 18 June

The final day was organised as a series of nine ‘plenary panels’ running in parallel, with each session lasting 75 minutes. The first recording features the five moderated panels recorded in the Aula Maxima, examining the themes of Politics, Trauma, Partition, Disorder and Faith.

 

Panel 1: Politics
Time Signiture: 0:5:41 - 1:13:12
  • Chair: Dr Theresa Reidy (UCC)
  • Dr Ciara Meehan (University Hertfordshire)
  • David McCullagh (RTE)
  • Prof Gary Murphy (DCU)
Panel 3: Trauma
Time Signiture: 1:24:23 - 2:50-38
  • Chair: Dr Sarah Anne Buckley (NUIG)
  • Prof Linda Connolly (Maynooth University)
  • Dr Síobhra Aiken (QUB)
  • Fergal Keane (BBC)
Panel 5: Partition
Time Signiture: 3:59:40 - 5:19:39
  • Chair: Dr Brian Hughes (Mary Immaculate College)
  • Dr Adrian Grant (Ulster University)
  • Dr Éamon Phoenix
  • Dr Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid, (University Sheffield)
Panel 7: Disorder
Time Signiture: 5:30:10 - 6:39:57
  • Chair: Dr Donal O Drisceoil (UCC)
  • Dr Brian Hanley, (TCD)
  • Dr Gemma Clark (University of Exeter)
  • Dr Liam O’Callaghan (Liverpool Hope University)    
Panel 9: Faith
Time Signiture: 6:49:13 - 7:58:04
  • Chair: Dr Ida Milne (Carlow College)
  • Dr Andy Bielenberg, (UCC)
  • Dr Dáithí Ó Corráin (DCU)
  • Dr Tricia Oakley Kessler (University of Cambridge/Herzog Centre TCD)
  • Gabriel Doherty (UCC)
Conference Close
Time Signiture: 7:58:04 - 8:15:39
    • Conference Close
    • Message from Catherine Martin TD is the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
    • Dr John Borgonovo, School of History, UCC
 

The second recording features the four moderated panels recorded in Boole 4, examining the themes of Labour, Diplomacy, Gender and Memory.

 

Panel 2: Labour
Time Signiture: 0:01:09 - 1:18:47
  • Chair: Dr John Cunningham, (NUIG)
  • Dr Emmet O'Connor (Ulster University)
  • Dr Padraig Yeates (SIPTU)
  • Theresa Moriarty
  • Dr Niamh Purséil
 
Panel 4: Diplomacy
Time Signiture: 1:26:48 - 2:45:27
  • Chair: Dr Michael Kennedy (RIA)
  • Prof Fearghal McGarry (QUB)
  • Prof Dermot Keogh (UCC)
  • Prof Bernadette Whelan (University Limerick)
 
Panel 8: Gender
Time Signiture: 5:25:28 - 6:38:38
  • Chair: Prof Lindsey Earner-Byrne (UCC)
  • Dr Fionnuala Walsh (UCD)
  • Dr Margaret Ward (QUB)
  • Prof Catriona Beaumont (London Southbank University)
  • Prof Sonja Tiernan (University of Otago)
 
Panel 10: Memory
Time Signiture: 6:45:46 -7:53:31
  • Chair: Dr Heather Laird (UCC)
  • Prof Diarmaid Ferriter (UCD)
  • Dr Laura McAtackney (Aarhus University),
  • Dr Lisa Godson (NCADD)
  • Prof Gavin Foster (Concordia University)
 

 

Programme Pdf

Programme Pdf

Speakers' Bios

Speakers' Bios

The Irish Revolution Project

Scoil na Staire /Tíreolaíocht

University College Cork, Cork,

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