The Irish History Show

On this episode of the Irish History Show we have part three of our series on the Fenians. By the late 1890s, the Irish Republican Brotherhood was led by an older, cautious Supreme Council that prioritised self-preservation over direct military action. They officially banned individual assassinations and spent much of this period maintaining a low-profile underground network to survive British intelligence surveillance. Realising that an armed rebellion was temporarily out of the question, the IRB pivoted toward a long-term strategy of cultural entryism. Rather than recruiting solely for physical force, IRB members actively infiltrated the key mass-membership organisations of the Irish Cultural Revival such as the GAA and the Gaelic League. We looked at some of the members that revitalised the movement such as Bulmer Hobson, Dennis McCullough, Seán MacDiarmada and Thomas Clarke. We also covered events such as the founding of the Dungannon Clubs, the Home Rule Crisis, the founding of the Ulster and Irish Volunteers and the road towards the 1916 Easter Rising. We have recently started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the Irish History Show we were joined by Dr. Eoin O’Malley to discuss his new book, Charlie vs. Garret – The rivalry that shaped modern Ireland. In the 1980s, Irish politics was dominated by Charlie Haughey’s Fianna Fáil and Garret Fitzgerald’s Fine Gael. The 1980s in Ireland was a period of high unemployment, emmigration and deep structural problems within the economy, while the violence of the Troubles continued to destabilise the country. In this episode we discussed the early lives and family backgrounds of both men; their entry into politics; their ministerial careers and their leaderships of their respective political parties. We also compared their leaderships under three areas; the economy, the North of Ireland, and social issues and the various campaigns to liberalise the economy. Eoin O’Malley is an Associate Professor in political science at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. There he teaches politics and public policy. We have recently started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the Irish History Show we returned to the subject of the Fenians. We traced the movement from the end of the 1867 Rebellion onwards. We covered such subjects as the Amnesty Campaign, the Catalpa rescue, the New Departure, splits in the American movement, the Land War and the growth of cultural nationalism in the 1880s and 1890s. We have recently started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the Irish History Show we discussed the Fenians. The Fenians  were Irish republican revolutionaries that sought to achieve the independence of Ireland from the British Empire in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. The main Fenian organisations were the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood. In 1867, they attempted a rising in Ireland which was co-ordinated with raids into Canada from the United States. Although the rising failed, the IRB continued in existence and played a central part in the 1916 Easter Rising and the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence which led to the establishment of the Irish Free State. We have recently started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the Irish History Show we discussed the Penal Laws in Ireland. The Penal Laws were a series of legal disabilities imposed in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries on the kingdom’s Roman Catholic majority and, to a lesser degree, on Protestant “Dissenters”. Enacted by the Irish Parliament, they secured the Protestant Ascendancy by further concentrating property and public office in the hands of those who, as communicants of the established Church of Ireland, subscribed to the Oath of Supremacy. The laws were repealed through a series of relief acts beginning in 1771. The last significant disability, the requirement that Members of Parliament take the Oath of Supremacy, was removed in 1829, after Ireland had been incorporated by the 1800 Acts of Union into a United Kingdom with Great Britain. We have recently started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the Irish History Show we were joined by Gerard Shannon to discuss his new biography of Rory O’Connor. Rory O’Connor was an Irish Republican who was Director of Engineering for the IRA in the Irish War of Independence. O’Connor opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and was chairman of the Republican military council that became the Anti-Treaty IRA in March 1922. He was the main spokesman for the Republican side in the lead-up to the outbreak of the Irish Civil War in June of that year. On 30 June, O’Connor was taken prisoner at the conclusion of the attack by Free State forces on the Four Courts in Dublin. On 8 December 1922, he was executed along with three other senior members of the IRA Four Courts garrison. All four men were executed without trial or court martial. Gerard Shannon is a historian from Skerries in Co. Dublin. In 2019 he wrote his MA thesis, for the School of History and Geography in Dublin City University, on Liam Lynch. His biography of Lynch, Liam Lynch: To Declare a Republic, was published in 2023. Gerard has also written numerous articles for the Irish Story website. We have recently started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the Irish History Show, John was joined by Tomás MacConmara to discuss his book Days of Hunger, the Clare Volunteers and the Mountjoy Hunger strike of 1917. The book deals with the events of 1917 culminating in the death of Volunteer leader Thomas Ashe after force feeding while on hunger strike. MacConmara argues that the events of 1917, in particular the death of Ashe, crystalised and ‘gave new meaning’ to the Easter Rising of the year before. What emerged at the end of 1917 was a Republican movement that was ‘more coherent’ more popular and more politically astute than the disparate coalition that had launched the Rising. Central to this was a form of passive resistance, whereby activists would openly defy the wartime ban on unauthorised military drilling or seditious speeches, get arrested in full view of the public and once imprisoned, hunger strike for political status. This culminated with the death of Thomas Ashe. Tomás Mac Conmara is an award-winning oral historian and author from County Clare. In 2016, he was commended by President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins, as one of seven recipients who have made outstanding contributions to culture over the last 100 years for a Comhaltas Forógra na Cásca Centenary Award. He began documenting oral tradition and folklore in the townland of Ballymalone in east Clare as a teenager and is now recognised as one of the leading oral historians in the country. From 2008 to 2014, he led the foundation and development of Cuimhneamh an Chláir (Memories of Clare) and was also a founding member of the Oral History Network of Ireland. He is also a former County Heritage Officer and in January 2016 was appointed by UCC as Manager of the Cork Folklore Project. We have started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the Irish History Show we spoke to Dr. Spencer Jones about the Boer War. The Boer War, also known as the Second Boer War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal in South Africa from 1899 to 1902. The war resulted in the British annexation of the Boer Republics and the creation of the Union of South Africa. In the show we looked at the background to the conflict, we asked who were the Boers, what were the different stages of the war, the relative military strengths, public opinion in Ireland and Britain during the war, the effects of the war on the civilian population and the long term impact on the British Army. Dr. Spencer Jones is an award-winning historian and author. He is Senior Lecturer in Armed Forces and War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and serves as the Regimental Historian for the Royal Regiment of Artillery. His key works include From Boer War to World War: Tactical Reform of the British Army 1902-1914 and Stemming the Tide: Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force 1914, which was runner-up for the Templer Medal in 2014. He has published several critically acclaimed books on the British Army in the First World War including Courage without Glory: The British Army on the Western Front 1915 and At All Costs: The British Army on the Western Front 1916. His most recent volume is The Darkest Year: The British Army on the Western Front 1917. Dr. Jones is also the co-host of the popular First World War podcast Not So Quiet on the Western Front. We have started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the Irish History Show we spoke to Colonel Gareth Prendergast about his new book, Clear, Hold, Build: How the Free State won the Irish Civil War. He discussed how the National Army defeated the Anti – Treaty IRA using the counter – insurgency tactics of clear, hold and build. Dr Gareth Prendergast is a serving Colonel in the Irish Defence Forces with over 30 years’ service. He has seven operational tours of duty overseas including the Middle East, Balkans and Mali. He has also served in the Military College and Defence Force Headquarter on numerous occasions, including appointments in the Command and Staff School, OIC Military Finance Branch and Director of Logistics. Academically he has a Masters of Military Art and Science from his year spent on the US Army Command and General Staff Course in Fort Leavenworth Kansas and he recently achieved his Doctorate (PhD) after six years study and research in the History Department of UCC. We have started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the Irish History Show we spoke to Professor Neil Davison and Vincent Altman O’Connor about the Irish – Jewish politician Albert L. Altman. We explored the idea that Altman is a possible inspiration for Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Professor Neil Davison is a member of the faculty of the School of Writing, Literature and Film at Oregon State University. Professor Davison’s works include James Joyce, “Ulysses,” and the Construction of Jewish Identity; Jewishness and Masculinity from the Modern to the Postmodern and An Irish-Jewish Politician, Joyce’s Dublin, and Ulysses: The Life and Times of Albert L. Altman. Vincent Altman O’Connor is a civil servant and a descendant of Albert Altman. He has written and lectured on Bloom and Altman. We have started a Patreon page for The Irish Story website and The Irish History Show. Please follow the link and your support is greatly appreciated. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=29204818 Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.