County Louth and the Irish Revolution, 1912–1923

Description

County Louth and the Irish Revolution, 1912–1923 explores the local activism of the IRA and how revolution was experienced by rural and urban labourers, RIC men, republican women, cultural activists, and Big House families. Events were increasingly shaped for all these groups by the developing reality of partition, transforming a marginal county into a borderland and creating a zone of new violence and banditry.

The expert contributors to the first-ever local history of the county during this period bring to light a wealth of fascinating stories that will appeal to the general public and historians alike. Critically, these stories reveal new findings about the early military skirmishes in County Louth by republican figures such as Seán MacEntee and Frank Aiken; the controversial sectarian massacre at Altnaveigh; and how the Civil War made a fiery battlefield of Dundalk and Drogheda.

County Louth and the Irish Revolution, 1912–1923 documents the complexity of the local experience as the national revolution merged with long-established antagonisms and traditions, the effects of which have shaped the county ever since.

Table of Contents

1. Politics and Revolution in County Louth, 1914–1922 ~ Donal Hall
2. Cumann na mBan in County Louth, 1914–1921 ~ Ailbhe Rogers
3. Labour in County Louth, 1912–1923 ~ Martin Maguire
4. Policing County Louth, 1912–1922 ~ Brendan McAvinue
5. ‘Acting the Rebel’: Amateur Dramatics and Revolution in County Louth ~ Fiona Fearon
6. The Railways of County Louth in the Revolutionary Decade, 1912-1923 ~ Peter Rigney
7. Changing Times: The Big House in County Louth, 1912–1923 ~ Jean Young
8. William McQuillan of Drogheda: An Unlikely Rebel ~ John McCullen
9. In the Shadow of Altnaveigh: Political Upheaval and Sectarian Violence in County Louth, 1920–1922 ~ Conor McNamara
10. The Civil War in Drogheda ~ Mal Martin
11. The Civil War in Dundalk and the Case of Charles Gyles, 1898–1922 ~ Don Johnston
12. War of Independence and Civil War Memorial Inscriptions in County Louth, 1916-1923 ~ Seamus Bellew
13. Compiling the Names of the County Louth Volunteers who Mobilised, Easter Week 1916 ~ Lorraine McCann

About the Editors

Martin Maguire works in the department of Humanities at Dundalk IT where he is Senior Lecturer and Director of the BA (Hons) Digital Humanities. He is the author of ‘Shaking the blood-stained hand of Mr Collins’: The Civil Service and the Revolution in Ireland, 1912-38 and Servants to the People: A History of The Local Government & Public Service Union: 1900–1992.

Donal Hall has written and lectured extensively on the Great War and the revolutionary period in Co Louth; he is the author of World War One and Nationalist politics in Co Louth 1914–1920, ‘The unreturned army’: County Louth Dead in the Great War and The Louth Rifles 1877–1908.