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.



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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.



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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.



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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.



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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 Economic War, also known as the Anglo - Irish Trade War. It lasted from 1932 to 1938. When Fianna Fáil were first elected to government in 1932 they refused to continue paying the Land Annuities to the British government. This led to a series of retaliatory tariffs from both governments.



The Fianna Fáil government used the dispute as an opportunity to build up domestic manufacturing behind these new tariffs. The economic war led to political instability and violence from sections of Irish society whose livelihoods were damaged by the trade war such as cattle graziers and exporters. It also led to the rise of the Blueshirts.



The Economic War was concluded by the Anglo - Irish Agreement in 1938.



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Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode off the Irish History Show, we spoke to Dr. Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc about his new book Burn them out! A history of Fascism and the Far Right in Ireland.



Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc is an historian from Clare who has a BA in Archaeology from University College Dublin and a PhD in History from the University of Limerick. He has published eight books.



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 off the Irish History Show, we covered part three of our series on the history of Irish elections. We looked at municipal elections and the reforms of Thomas Drummond, the British Under - Secretary for Ireland.



We looked at the evolution of party politics in Ireland in the 19th century and the unionist / nationalist divide.



We also looked at the impact of the Reforms Acts and the expansion of the franchise.



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 off the Irish History Show, we covered part two of our series on the history of Irish elections. We looked at the Protestant Ascendency in the 18th century and the Penal Laws. The contentious 1713 General Election and the riots that took place in Dublin and how the Irish Parliament lagged behind Westminster in terms of electoral reform.



We looked at party politics in Ireland, the growth of the Patriot movement and the Constitution of 1782.



We looked at the Act of Union and Daniel O'Connell's famous election to Westminster leading to Catholic Emancipation in 1829.



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 looked at the history of elections in Ireland. Parliament in Medieval Ireland was an event rather than an institution. The earliest known parliament was held in Castledermot in County Kildare and over the years parliament met in different towns and cities throughout the Anglo - Norman Lordship of Ireland.



We looked at how these parliaments were elected, who they represented and what type of laws they passed. We looked at Poyning's Law and the Statutes of Kilkenny.



This first episode traced the history of elections up to the end of Williamite Wars.



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 have combined five episodes of a podcast series we made for Timeline Research Ltd. about tracing your Irish ancestors.



The series covered topics such as finding out information on relatives who fought in the First World War, housing, using the census and tax returns to make your family tree and how to use and access different archives and online resources.



The series was co-hosted by one of Ireland's leading genealogists, Nicola Morris. Nicola is the founder and director of Timeline Research Ltd. and is currently the President of Accredited Genealogists Ireland. Nicola lectures on Genealogy in University College Dublin, University College Cork, the University of Limerick and City Colleges, Dublin.



In 2017 she was appointed to the Board of the Irish Manuscripts Commission  and was more recently appointed to the Genealogy and Heraldry Committee of the Board of the National Library of Ireland.



Nicola works very closely with the production company for the BBC TV programme Who Do You Think You Are? as well as the Irish and US versions of the show, which aired on RTE, NBC and TLC networks. Nicola has appeared on screen with Rosie O’Donnell, Judy Dench, Jeremy Irons, Graham Norton, Chris Moyles, Julie Walters, Emma Willis and Paul Merton, among others. Nicola was also one of the presenters of the first series of The Genealogy Roadshow for RTE. She was a researcher for and contributor to The Tenements, an award nominated series for TV3 as well as a researcher and presenter on The Great House Revival for RTE and she works closely with other Irish and international production companies on programmes about genealogy and Irish history.



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 looked at the Birmingham Pub Bombings of the 21st of November 1974 and the long campaign for justice for the six men who were wrongfully convicted of these killings.



To discuss the Birmingham Six we were joined by two special guests. Chris Mullin is an author, journalist and diarist and, from 1987 to 2010, he was the Labour Party MP for Sunderland South in England. His work with Granada Television's World in Action current affairs series, and his 1986 book, Error of Judgement: The Truth behind the Birmingham Pub Bombings, were integral in proving the innocence of the Birmingham Six. Error of Judgement was described by the author and journalist Sebastian Faulks as 'One of the greatest feats in investigative journalism.' A new edition of Error of Judgement has been published this year to mark 50 years since the bombings.



Dr. Michael Flavin is from the School of Global Studies in King's College, London. Michael's novels include The Voice Hearer and One Small Step. He has written many articles on the Troubles and a lot of his writing draws on his experience growing up in the Irish community in Birmingham in the 1970s. Michael's latest novel is Long is the Way and is due to be published next year.



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Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the show we looked at the McMahon murders. The murders occurred on 24 March 1922 when six Catholic civilians were shot dead at the home of the McMahon family in Belfast. The victims were businessman Owen McMahon, four of his sons, and one of his employees. Two others were shot but survived, and a female family member was assaulted. Owen McMahon (50), Gerard McMahon (15), Frank McMahon (24), Patrick McMahon (22) and Edward McKinney (25) were killed outright while Bernard McMahon (26) died later. The youngest McMahon son, 12-year-old Michael, survived the attack by hiding behind furniture and pretending to be hit. John McMahon (30) survived despite serious gunshot wounds.



Nobody was ever prosecuted for the murders but it is believed the killers were members of the police and Ulster Special Constabulary.



We spoke to Dr. Edward Burke about his recent book, Ghosts of a Family: Ireland’s Most Infamous Unsolved Murder, the Outbreak of the Civil War and the Origins of the Modern Troubles. Dr. Burke investigates the circumstances of the murders and places it in the context of the extreme violence in the city at the time which became known as the Belfast Pogrom.



Edward Burke is an Assistant Professor in the History of War since 1945 at University College Dublin (UCD). He is currently the Director of the International War Studies MA programme and Director of Graduate Teaching at the School of History. Prior to joining UCD, he was an Assistant/Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of Nottingham (2017-2022). From 2015 to 2017 Edward was a Lecturer in Strategic Studies at the University of Portsmouth, attached to RAFC Cranwell. He received his PhD in International Relations in 2016 from the University of St. Andrews.



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Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

On this episode of the show we were joined by Dr. Aidan Beatty to discuss his new book The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism published by Pluto Press.



Gerry Healy was the Galway born leader of the Socialist Labour League and the Workers Revolutionary Party. He was a key figure in Trotskyism and one of the most controversial leaders on the British left. His legacy is tainted by his expulsion from his own party under accusations of sexual abuse, his use of violence against political opponents and the cult like conditions of his party.



Aidan Beatty is an award-winning historian and lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Private Property and the Fear of Social Chaos, and Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, which was awarded the James S. Donnelly Sr. Prize. He has written for Jacobin, the Irish Times and the Washington Post. He will be the president of the American Conference for Irish Studies in 2025.



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Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

We have reached a very special milestone on the Irish History Show as this is our 100th episode! We discussed setting up the show and how it has evolved over the years. Our thanks to Near FM for originally broadcasting the show and our special thanks to all the amazing guests we've had over the years. We remember our favourite episodes and subjects we've returned to time and again.



Most importantly we want to thank you the listeners for all the support over the years and hopefully it won't take as long to reach 200 episodes!



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 show, we discussed the Irish Civil War Fatalities Project.



The Irish Civil War Fatalities Project, supported with funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, seeks to identify all of the conflict-related fatalities in Ireland between the opening shots of the Civil War on 28 June 1922 and the ceasefire and dump arms order on 24 May 1923.



For decades, historians of the Civil War have resorted to estimates when surveying the human cost of Ireland's Civil War. Now, for the first time, UCC historian Dr Andy Bielenberg, assisted by John Dorney, has enumerated the civilian and combatant fatalities, allowing for a wide-ranging, sometimes surprising, analysis of the nature and geographic distribution of the casualties and their impact.



In collaboration with UCC’s Atlas of the Irish Revolution Team, the research findings have been cartographically represented in a searchable, interactive Civil War Fatalities map.



The project can be accessed here.



Our own John Dorney discussed his time working on the project and what information is contained on the new site.



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 looked at the Plantation of Ulster. The Plantation was the colonisation of Ireland's northern province of Ulster by people from Britain during the reign of James VI and I. The official plantation began in 1609 in six of Ulster's nine counties, Donegal, Coleraine, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh and Cavan. Lands in counties Antrim, Down and Monaghan were privately planted with Crown support.



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Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

The Nine Year War in Ireland took place in Ireland from 1593 to 1603. The rebellion was led by Hugh O'Neill and Red Hugh O'Donnell and was a response to the Tudor Conquest in Ireland. The rebellion began in Ulster but eventually spread throughout the whole country. There were some significant Irish victories such as Clontibret and Yellow Ford but the Battle of Kinsale saw the English win a pivotal victory against the Irish and their Spanish allies.



(Unfotunately, when we were discussing the marriages of Hugh O'Neill, we referred to Mabel Bagenal as the former wife of Henry Bagenal. She was Henry's sister and she eloped with Hugh O'Neill, much to the anger of Henry Bagenal.)



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Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.

The Desmond Rebellions occurred in 1569–1573 and 1579–1583 in the Irish province of Munster. They were rebellions by the Earl of Desmond, the head of the FitzGerald dynasty in Munster, and his followers, the Geraldines and their allies, against the threat of the extension of the English government over the province. The rebellions were motivated primarily by the desire to maintain the independence of feudal lords from their monarch but also had an element of religious antagonism between Catholic Geraldines and the Protestant English state. They culminated in the destruction of the Desmond dynasty and the plantation or colonisation of Munster with English Protestant settlers. 



Two articles here from the Irish Story website on the Desmond Rebellions:



The First Desmond Rebellion.



The Second Desmond Rebellion.



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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 1923 General Election in the Irish Free State. The election for the fourth Dáil was held on the 27th of August 1923. It was the first general election held since the establishment of the Irish Free State on the 6th of December 1922. The election was held in aftermath of the Irish Civil War, which had only ended a few short months before.



UCD Press has recently published a new book on the 1923 election called Vying for Victory. The book is edited by Mel Farrell, Elaine Callinan and Thomas Tormey and we were very pleased to be joined by Mel and Elaine on the show.



Both Dr. Elaine Callinan and Dr. Mel Farrell lecture in Irish history at Carlow College, St. Patrick's.



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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 Irish Army Mutiny of 1924. In March 1924 about 50 officers of the Free State’s National Army, who were set to be demobilised in the post- Civil War reduction of the Army, seized weapons and abandoned their posts. Led by erstwhile Army Director of Intelligence Liam Tobin and Charles Dalton, they delivered an ultimatum to the government, demanding that the Army Council, headed by Richard Mulcahy, resign and that they and their associates be given prominent commands.



They also demanded that the Army be purged of former British Army officers and that progress be made towards Michael Collins’ ideal of an all-Ireland Republic. Some contacts were made with interned anti-Treaty IRA prisoners to make common cause against the Free State government, though they were generally rejected by the anti-Treatyites, Civil War wounds being very fresh at the time.



Today the mutiny is often dismissed as a mere farce. These were however very dangerous men. Most had served in Collins’ IRA Squad and Intelligence Department in the War of Independence.



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Intro / Outro music “Sliabh” from Aislinn. Licensed under creative commons from the free music archive.