The Irish Civil War—a military analysis

At the outbreak of the Irish Civil War in June 1922 the anti-Treaty IRA numbered some 15,000, holding key positions in Dublin and throughout the country, in particular behind a […]

What if Michael Collins had survived the Civil War?

On 22 August 1922, Michael Collins was killed at Béal na Bláth, Co. Cork. But what if he had survived? Would he have become a military dictator? (Was he one […]

Unmanageable Revolutionaries—women in the ‘decade of centenaries’

It is nearly 40 years since Margaret Ward’s pioneering Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism, 1880-1980 (1983) first appeared. How has women’s history, and history written by women, fared in the meantime, […]

Michael Collins—man and myth

Born in West Cork in 1890, Michael Collins joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) as a teenager while working as a clerk in London. He fought in the GPO in […]

Arthur Griffith, ‘father of us all’

So said Michael Collins, yet despite his central role in the development of the Irish nationalism from which the Irish State would emerge, Arthur Griffith has had to settle for […]