Editors' Introduction: The Civil War of 1922–23

Abstract

Editors' Introduction:The Civil War of 1922–23 Marie Coleman (bio) and James S. Donnelly Jr. (bio) During the "Decade of Centenaries" much new scholarly work has appeared in the form of books and articles on the War of Independence of 1919–21 and the Civil War of 1922–23. Both of these subjects have been greatly enriched by this renewed attention over the past ten or a dozen years. This enhancement of the corpus of scholarship has been facilitated by the granting of new scholarly access to large collections of historical records, including the witness statements collected by the Bureau of Military History in Dublin; the detailed personnel records of the Military Service Pensions Collection in the same city; the county-based series of compensation claims hosted by the Irish National Archives, Dublin; and the compensation claims submitted to the Irish Grants Committee, held by the National Archives, London. Nevertheless, it is probably true that the War of Independence has attracted more interest from scholars and other writers than the Civil War of 1922–23. In recognition of this imbalance, the coeditors of this special issue of Éire-Ireland have worked to assemble a collection of essays from distinguished scholars that is intended to help redress this imbalance. While other scholars have given special attention to military aspects of the Civil War, the coeditors and contributors to this volume have ranged much further afield. John Borgonovo, for example, while concerned in part with the military actors heading the "Munster Republic," is much more interested in the workings of anti-Treaty civil administration and the economic resources of Cork republicans. On the other hand, contributor Adrian Grant is certainly dedicated to exploring where those whom he terms "neutral Northerners" fit in the military plans and arrangements of southern politicians and military [End Page 5] leaders. But in his close examination of this important topic, he takes a fresh biographical approach. The political dimensions of the Irish Civil War have not gone unexplored, but Bill Kissane takes a nontraditional approach that is much less concerned with political leaders and much more interested in the decisions and thinking of Irish voters. His essay provides a close inspection of voting patterns and the reasons (or theories about reasons) that help to explain the early development of the party system in the fledgling Free State. The roles and circumstances of women and children (especially the latter) also merit much more attention than they have so far received. Both Mary McAuliffe and Helene O'Keefe focus on these important subjects in the context of County Kerry, which was a cockpit of civil-war conflict and became notorious for the actions of General Paddy Daly (or O'Daly) and his Dublin Guards. McAuliffe dissects the fraught interactions between militant anti-Treaty women and members of the National Army and finds that Free State soldiers frequently abused these women both physically and sexually. She calls attention to the euphemistic language commonly used to disguise gross violations of women's moral integrity. The civil-war experiences of children are a much-neglected subject, but Helene O'Keefe examines this matter closely for perhaps the first time. She finds that the conflict inflicted traumatic effects on many children, as shown though archived oral-history sources hardly ever exploited but used skillfully in her essay to uncover neglected childhood experiences of civil-war violence. Several factors combined to produce widespread outbreaks of agrarian disorder during the Civil War on a scale not seen since the days of the Land League and the National League campaigns of the 1880s and the Ranch War of 1907–12. As James Donnelly shows in his exploration of land hunger and agrarianism in the years 1922–23, the practice of cattle driving became the leading edge of an avalanche of agrarian disorder during which intense intimidation and some violence against landowners and graziers became what have been called "weapons of the weak," used in this case by landless laborers, cottiers, and small farmers to bring about land redistribution through the breakup of large grazing ranches and landlord demesnes. This campaign was so intense and effective that many of its victims felt [End Page 6...