Westmeath County Council Culture and Creativity Team invites submissions for a special bursary which will enable creative practitioners to explore, in a creative way (be that music, performance, film, writing or another form), the themes and events of the Decade of Centenaries.The bursary award scheme is funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, […]
In an earlier edition (see article by Dr Ann Marie O’Brien) and podcast, we discussed the life and career of Alice King who was born near Mullingar in 1882 to James and Georgina King. On 30 January 1902 she married Laurence Ginnell (whose career we followed in these podcasts and in the following article by […]
Previous articles traced the course of the conflict as it moved from conventional to guerrilla warfare. Here, we discuss one example of such guerrilla warfare: a fatal ambush carried out by the anti-Treaty IRA in Glasson, near Athlone, in late August 1922. The Irish Independent was the first to carry the news. On Saturday 26 […]
Ronan McGreevy is a journalist and videographer with The Irish Times. He is the author of the book ‘Wherever the Firing Line Extends: Ireland and the Western Front’ 1. McGreevy is the editor of Centenary, Ireland remembers 1916 the official State book recalling the commemorations of 2016. He is the author of the recently published, […]
Westmeath County Council, as part of its Decade of Centenaries programme, welcomes a new exhibition of photos from the Irish Civil War. Titled ‘Civil I Am’, the exhibition showcases around 40 images from the conflict, all collected from various archives and libraries. Curated by Galway-based historian Damien Quinn, the exhibition was recently displayed in Galway’s […]
In the second of two articles, guest contributor Dr. John O’Callaghan explains how the anti-Treaty IRA responded to the victories won by the National Army during the early weeks of the Civil War. The opening phase of the Civil War was characterised by large-scale, fixed-position, conventional confrontations between the pro-Treaty National Army and the anti-Treaty […]
Dr John O’Callaghan, our latest guest contributor, provides an overview of the fighting during the early stages of the Civil War. The opening, conventional phase of the Civil War was characterised by large-scale confrontations between the anti-Treaty IRA and the pro-Treaty National Army in the summer of 1922, after which the National Army had established […]
by Ian Kenneally ‘A thrill of horror’, according to the Westmeath Independent, ‘of shame, of despair, of the deepest distress went through the length and breadth of our land on Wednesday morning last when it was learned that General Michael Collins had been shot dead in Cork. Another great Irishman is gone; another great loss has […]
Ian Kenneally In the previous article, we explored the circumstances that led to the shooting dead of George Adamson in April 1922. Here, we look in more detail at the subsequent propaganda battle in which both pro- and anti-Treaty forces blamed each other for Adamson’s death. That propaganda battle began with, as discussed in the […]
In an earlier edition of the blog we discussed the shooting dead of George Adamson in April 1922. In that article, Dr John Gibney described Adamson’s career and the local reaction to Adamson’s death. It was an event that shocked people in Westmeath and nationally. Here, we look in more detail at the subsequent propaganda battle in which both pro- and anti-Treaty forces blamed each other for Adamson’s death.