Conference Recordings
Kerry Civil War Conference
Siamsa Tíre Theatre, Tralee, Co. Kerry
23/24/25 February 2023
Conference Recordings
Day 1 Thursday 23 February 2023
Official Opening
Cathaoirleach of Kerry County Council, Cllr John Francis Flynn
Chief Executive of Kerry County Council, Moira Murrell
Vice-Chair of the Expert Advisory Group on Centenary Commemorations, Dr Martin Mansergh
First Keynote address
Professor Diarmaid Ferriter (University College Dublin), ‘Faith, Reason and Betrayal: The Irish Civil War’
Chair: Dr Mary McAuliffe (University College Dublin)
Day 2 Friday 24 February 2023
Panel 1: The Civil War in Ireland
Panel 1: The Civil War in Ireland
Paper 1: Liz Gillis (historian and author), ‘Easter Week Repeats Itself: The Battle for Dublin June – July 1922’
Paper 2: John Dorney (historian and editor of the Irish Story website), 'They treated Kerry as a hostile country': National Army Reprisals in Cork and Kerry during the Civil War’
Paper 3: Dr Thomas Earls Fitzgerald (historian and author), ‘‘From Bandits to Government': The Move from Insurrection to Constitutionality by anti-Treaty Republicans in the post-Civil War Period’
Chair: Dr Daithí Ó Corráin (Dublin City University)
Panel 2: The Civil War in Kerry
Panel 2: The Civil War in Kerry
Paper 1: Dr Daithí Ó Corráin (Dublin City University), ‘Bullocks, Provisions and Motor Cars’: Compensation Claims for Commandeered Property during the Civil War in Kerry
Paper 2: Orson McMahon (PhD candidate and researcher, University of Leiden), ‘Civil War Violence in Kerry: Targeted Killings and the Dynamics of Escalation and Revenge’
Paper 3: Dr Richard McElligott (Dundalk Institute of Technology), ‘‘The last cry of Aero Lyons echoed in the ears of Kerrymen for long years after’: Kilflynn – a Community Case Study of the Irish Civil War’
Chair: John Dorney (editor, The Irish Story website)Second keynote address
Dr Bill Kissane (London School of Economics), ‘The Geography of the Civil War: Kerry and Beyond
Chair: Dr Richard McElligott (Dundalk Institute of Technology)
Panel 3: Memory and the Civil War
Panel 3: Memory and the Civil War
Paper 1: Professor Laura McAtackney (University College Cork and Aarhus University, Denmark), ‘(Re)remembering the Civil War during the Decade of Commemorations: Issues of Gender, Geography, Class and International Relations’
Paper 2: Dr Hélène O’Keeffe (University College Cork), ‘A Troubling Inheritance: The Civil War in Kerry in Oral History and Memory’
Paper 3: Cécile Chemin (project manager, Military Service Pensions Collection), ‘The Ripples of Kerry’s Civil War – Military Service Pensions Collection Dependency Claims’
Chair: Tomás Mac Conmara (historian and author)
Day 3 Saturday 25 February 2023
Panel 4: Civilian and Socio-Economic Impacts of the Civil War
Panel 4: Civilian and Socio-Economic Impacts of the Civil War
Paper 1: Professor Fionnuala Walsh (University College Dublin), ‘A gallant fight’: Violence, Trauma and Loss at Clashmealcon Caves’
Paper 2: Kieran McNulty (historian and author), ‘Class, Gender, Labour and Civil War in Kerry, 1921-23’
Paper 3: Helen O’Carroll (curator, Kerry County Museum), ‘Decade’: Ten Objects which Portray the Lived Experience of People in Kerry during the Turbulent Period of 1918 – 28’
Chair: Dr Bill Kissane (London School of Economics)
Panel 5: Gender and Violence in Ireland’s Civil War
Panel 5: Gender and Violence in Ireland’s Civil War
Paper 1: Dr Mary McAuliffe (University College Dublin), ‘Unmitigated Blackguardism’: The Treatment of Militant anti-Treaty Women in Kerry by the National Army during the Irish Civil War’
Paper 2: Dr Margaret Ward (Queen’s University Belfast), 'Keeping our Heads Down' – Northern Women and the Impact of the Civil War’
Paper 3: Dr Gemma Clarke (University of Exeter), ‘A new State Forged by Fire?: The Role of Arson in the Irish Civil War’
Chair: Professor Laura McAtackney (University College Cork and Aarhus University, Denmark)
Third keynote address
Dr Leeann Lane (Dublin City University), ‘Constructing the Civil War: Dorothy Macardle’s Tragedies of Kerry’
Chair: Dr Mary McAuliffe (University College Dublin)
Panel 6: Trauma and its Enduring Legacy
Panel 6: Trauma and its Enduring Legacy
Paper 1: Owen O’Shea (historian and author), ‘What in God’s Holy Name am I to do?’: The Traumatic Legacy of the Civil War for the Families of Combatants in Kerry’
Paper 2: Tomás Mac Conmara (historian and author), 'The Wish to Forget It' - The Drumboe Martyrs and its Landscape of Memory
Paper 3: Dr Síobhra Aiken (Queen’s University Belfast), ‘Understanding the “Spiritual Wounds” of the Irish Civil War from 1922 to 2023’
Chair: Liz Gillis (historian and author)
Roundtable Discussion: 100 Years on: The Legacy of the Civil War
Roundtable Discussion: 100 Years on: The Legacy of the Civil War
Chair: Dr David McCullagh (historian and author)
Dr Leeann Lane (Dublin City University)
Dr Martin Mansergh (vice-chair, Expert Advisory Group on Centenary Commemorations)
Dr Mary McAuliffe (University College Dublin)
Owen O’Shea (historian and author)