News blog
Echoes of Civil War: Legacies of Internecine Conflicts – Ireland and Beyond
A One Day Academic Workshop hosted by the Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson St, Dublin
Friday 26 April 2024
Since ancient times civil wars have been recognised as uniquely tragic conflicts that leave particularly traumatic legacies. At a time in human history when internecine struggles are now acknowledged as by far the dominant form of warfare across the world, this one-day academic workshop will explore the complex inheritance of such conflicts in an Irish, European, and global context.
Individual papers will reflect various aspects of the social, political, and cultural impacts of these struggles across Ireland, Europe, Asia and Latin America.
A particular emphasis of this workshop is a comparative examination of the everyday ‘echoes’ of civil wars in order to assess the frequent commonality of these experiences across space and time.
Keynote speakers:
Professor Robert Gerwarth, School of History, University College Dublin (UCD); author of The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End (2016).
Professor Judi Pettigrew, School of Allied Health, University of Limerick (UL); author of Maoists at the Hearth: Everyday Life in Nepal’s Civil War (2013).
This event is generously supported by the RIA’s ‘2023 Decade of Centenaries Bursary’ scheme.
Organiser: Dr Richard McElligott, Department of Humanities, Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT)
The event is free and open to anyone to attend.
Directions to the Royal Irish Academy:
Call for Papers: ‘Echoes of Civil War: Legacies of Internecine Conflicts – Ireland and Beyond’
26 April 2024
Civil wars have always been recognised as uniquely tragic conflicts. In circa 61AD the Roman poet Lucan keenly observed that ‘it is wounds inflicted by the hand of fellow-citizens that have sunk deep’. As the bitter confrontation between pro and anti-Treaty factions spread across Ireland in August 1922 a reluctant Frank Aiken reflected on the musings of an old priest that ‘war with the foreigner brings to the fore all that is best and noblest in a nation, civil war all that is mean and base’.
At a time in human history when internecine struggles are now acknowledged as by far the dominant form of warfare across the world, this one-day academic workshop seeks to explore the complex inheritance of such conflicts in an Irish, European, and global context.
Proposals are invited for individual papers on subjects relating to any and all aspects of the social, political, and cultural impacts of these struggles.
However, a particular emphasis of this workshop will be a comparative examination of the everyday ‘echoes’ of civil wars in order to assess the frequent commonality of these experiences across space and time.
This event is being organised by Dr Richard McElligott, Department of Humanities, Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) and is being hosted by the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) and generously supported by the RIA’s ‘2023 Decade of Centenaries Bursary’ scheme.
Proposals for papers of circa 500 words should be emailed along with a brief biography of the speaker to richard.mcelligott@dkit.ie
The closing date for submissions is Friday 2 February 2024.
Interview with Radio Kerry
21 July 2023
In an interview with Jerry O’Sullivan’s Kerry Today programme on Radio Kerry, Dr Richard McElligott discusses his Royal Irish Academy funded history project entitled Echoes of War: The Everyday Legacy of the Civil War in North Kerry 1923 – 1934. As part of the project, Richard tells Jerry that he wants to hear from people in North Kerry who are direct descendants of those who took an active part in the conflict.
Press Coverage of Echoes of War Project
July 2023
DkIT Academic Receives Prestigious Royal Irish Academy Funding
21 June 2023
Dundalk Institute of Technology are thrilled to announce that one of their esteemed academics, Dr Richard McElligott, Lecturer in Modern and Irish History, Department of Humanities, has been awarded over €6,500 in funding as part of the Royal Irish Academy’s 2023 Decade of Centenaries Bursary scheme.
RIA Decade of Centenaries Bursaries Awarded
31 May 2023
The RIA today announces the twenty Decade of Centenaries Bursary scheme awardees, as part of the commemorative programme for the final year of the Decade of Centenaries, supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
The GAA and the Civil War
9 May 2023
The impact and legacy of the Civil War would shadow the independent Irish state for decades to come and the GAA could not help but be convulsed by the intense political fissures that erupted.
From Ireland’s Own, 1923-2023 Souvenir Edition April 2023
Free State Attempted Fourth Atrocity in Co Kerry on Same Day as Ballyseedy Massacre
10 March 2023
Historian Dr Richard McElligott says failed bombing in Scartaglin could have killed another five anti-Treaty IRA members
How the Ballyseedy Massacre Traumatised the Kerry Village of Kilflynn
7 March 2023
I come from Kilflynn, a small village in rural North Kerry whose history is interwoven with the Ballyseedy massacre of March 7th 1923. Stathis Kalyvas, the noted scholar of civil wars, argues such conflicts are the cruellest because the violence engendered results from local factors that drive the struggle’s bloody dynamics. Kilflynn’s experience can likewise be seen as a microcosm of the complex effects and legacy the Civil War left on Irish society as a whole.
Dr Richard McElligott Delivers Paper on Kilflynn’s Experience of the Civil War: The Kerry Civil War Conference
24 February 2023
RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland: One Hundred Years on from March 1923 – The Civil War’s ‘Murder Month’
24 February 2023
Shane McElhatton, Series Editor, Decade of Commemorations, speaks to Dr. Richard McElligott, Owen O’Shea and Dr. Mary McAuliffe about the depths of violence in Co. Kerry during March 1923
The Battle of Kenmare and the IRA’s ‘September Offensive’ in Kerry
19 January 2023
In September 1922, the IRA launched attacks on Kenmare and Killorglin, representing some of the largest Republican offences of the Civil War
The Story Behind the Bloodiest Day of Combat in the Civil War
3 August 2022
The National Army’s seaborne landing in Co Kerry 100 years ago changed the course of the conflict
Why was Co Kerry so Violent During the Civil War?
16 June 2022
The amount of retribution and atrocity in the Kingdom had as much to do with notions of loyalty as ideology
Echoes of War 