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Patterns of Irish Civil War Memory in Later-Generation Oral Histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2023
Abstract
No phase of Ireland's 1913–23 revolution has proven as challenging for social remembrance as the 1922–3 civil war. While the conflict structured party politics and fuelled political agendas for decades, its toxic memory was widely regarded as best forgotten. Yet, as Beiner has argued, even ‘when communities try . . . to forget discomfiting historical episodes’, they still ‘retain muted recollections’. Drawing on oral history interviews, this article examines civil war silences and selective memories transmitted across generations among families and communities impacted by the conflict. Themes to be touched on include silence; memories of incidents of violence and other traumatic experiences; partisan animosities and political reverberations of the period; and the material and physical manifestations of civil war memory. Consideration of these patterns illuminates complexities in nationalist memory in Ireland, while it suggests broader insights into how societies and communities make sense of divisive historical episodes.
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- Contemporary European History , Volume 32 , Special Issue 4: New Histories of the Irish Revolution , November 2023 , pp. 604 - 617
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
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9 This research project was undertaken with a generous grant from Fonds de recherche du Québec – société et culture (FRQSC). I would also like to express my gratitude to all of those, too numerous to mention here, who corresponded with me, sat for interviews, and/or who facilitated my interviews, fieldwork and local historical research. Full acknowledgements will appear in my future book coming out of this project.
10 My oral history research protocols were formally reviewed and approved by Concordia University's Human Research Ethics Committee. All interviews were conducted with respect to the principle of informed consent, with participants’ preferences for identification, reproduction of interviews, etc., fully respected here.
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27 Interview with Pat Dargan, Dublin, 5 Aug. 2012.
28 Gabriel Fitzmaurice during a group interview in Listowel, Co. Kerry, 18 July 2013.
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30 Correspondence with Valerie Cotter, 24 Feb. 2010.
31 Correspondence (including a questionnaire) with siblings Mairtín McCullough, Domhnall McCullough, and Úna Morris, July 2012.
32 These highly sensitive and often stigmatised aspects of family history were generally shared off the record, or else were speculation or rumors about well-known figures mentioned in private conversations. However, the recent public release of thousands of digitised Army Service Pension files contains abundant evidence of psychological and personal struggles many veterans experienced in ensuing decades. https://www.militaryarchives.ie/collections/online-collections/military-service-pensions-collection-1916-1923.
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49 Interviews recalling local stories of election violence in the 1930s include Listowel group interview, 18 July 2012.
50 Gabriel Collins, 7 Aug. 2012.
51 Interview with Annette and Des Long, Limerick City, 14 July 2013. Also, Tim Horgan and Eileen Comer, 17 July 2013.
52 Mentioned by Eileen Comer and Tim Horgan, 17 July 2013.
53 Annette and Des Long, 14 July 2013.
54 The Irish Military Service Pensions collection, large tranches of which have recently been released online, provides abundant evidence of the extent and scope of conflict-related injuries, disabilities, and health problems for which tens of thousands revolutionary veterans sought compensation in ensuing decades. https://www.militaryarchives.ie/collections/online-collections/military-service-pensions-collection-1916-1923. See also Marie Coleman, ‘“Troubled Compensation”: Awarding Pensions after Political Conflict in Ireland’, 28 May 2015, History and Policy website at: http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/troubled-compensation-awarding-pensions-after-political-conflict-in-ireland.
55 Interview with William Ryan, Montreal, Canada, 27 Apr. 2012.
56 Interview with Cormac O'Malley, New York City, 29 July 2013.
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58 Úna Morris, 23 July 2012 correspondence.
59 Devins, 10 July 2013.
60 Dargan, 5 Aug. 2012.