The Dead of the Irish Revolution by O'Halpin (review)

Abstract

16 Mary O’Rourke, ‘Remembering An Bráthair Ó Súilleabháin’, pp.189–193. Mary O’Rourke is a former TD for Longford-Westmeath and has served as Minister for Education, Minister for Health and Minister for Public Enterprise. She lives in Athlone and is a frequent media contributor. 17 Mary (Burke) McQuinn, ‘Entering first science, 1968’, pp.194–197. Mary (Burke) McQuinn, a retired teacher, lives in Tullow, Co. Carlow, with her husband, Christopher, also a Maynooth science graduate. 18 Mary Cullen talks to Vincent Comerford, ‘The 1960s see the first female lecturers’, pp. 198202 . Vincent Comerford is a Maynooth graduate and former Professor of Modern History. Dr Kevin McNamara later became Bishop of Kerry (1976–1984) and Archbishop of Dublin (1984–1987). Fr Tom Fee later used the Irish form of his name, Tomás Ó Fiaich. 19 Tom Collins, ‘The old order passeth away: Remembering Maynooth 1972–79’, p.305. 20 Evelyn Conlon, ‘Remembering what I’ve forgotten (1976)’, pp.271–274. Evelyn Conlon, a member of Aosdána, is a novelist, short story writer and essayist. 21 Lawrence Taylor, ‘An anthropologist’s memory of Maynooth’, pp.401–404. Lawrence Taylor continues to write, in a variety of genres, and divides his time between Tubac, Arizona (near the Mexican border) and Maynooth. 22 Denis Bergin, ‘Remembering Maynooth, an exercise in indulgence, acknowledgement, balance and preservation’, pp.23–31. Denis Bergin is a writer and editor. He lives in West Offaly and the eastern Algarve. 23 Thomas O’Connor, ‘From guff to chub, a seventies rite of passage’, pp.318–321. Thomas O’Connor is a Professor of History at Maynooth. 24 Tom Collins, ‘The old order passeth away: Remembering Maynooth 1972–79’, pp.301–306. Tom Collins is the former Head of Education at Ma ynooth University (2006–11), where he served as interim President from 2010–11. In recent years he has been involved in establishing the Technological Higher Education Association. Eunan O’Halpin and Daithí Ó Corráin, The Dead of the Irish Revolution (London: Yale University Press, 2020), xvii+705 pages. This book does for the revolution that culminated in the creation of the Irish Free State some hundred years ago what an earlier book by David McKittrick did for the more recent ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland, detailing those killed in the conflict and the best information on how the deaths occurred. It draws on published work, including memoirs, contemporary newspaper reports and accounts of participants lodged in the Bureau of Military History or found in applications to government for pensions or compensation. The entries detail payments made from public funds to the families of those killed. This is interesting but, perhaps, not all that meaningful without a full account of the basis upon which such payments were made by the British and Irish governments. The wilderness of single instances is analysed in a masterly introduction by Trinity’sProfessorEunanO’Halpinwho,despitehisstrongfamilyconnections with the ‘freedom fighters’of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Republican Army (IRA) of that era, has maintained an objective professionalism that has long Studies • volume 110 • number 437 110 Spring 2021: Book Reviews set his work apart from the polemical writings of some historians. This informs the treatment of individual deaths as well as his overall view. Typically, the account of the ‘Bloody Sunday’ shooting at Croke Park in November 1920 identifies it as ‘a bungled search and arrest operation by Crown forces rather than a calculated reprisal for the earlier killings of officers as is often asserted’. Professor O’Halpin does not shrink from admitting flaws in accounts given by members of his own family of events in which they were involved, nor from doubting the merits of some of their actions. ‘In seeking the truth’, he remarks somewhat sorrowfully, ‘be careful what you wish for’. Overall, the number of deaths in the Irish Revolution was not enormous – one tenth of the Irish who died in the Great War. The rebel fatalities of the 1916 rebellion – eighty-four (including those executed afterwards) – were much fewer than the soldiers and police opposing it or civilians caught in cross-fire and suchlike. What was most significant for the future were not the deaths themselves but...