This volume presents a unique and engaging selection of stories from current and retired staff at NUI Galway of familial participation during the revolutionary period. It captures the ways in which family history and memory is transmitted and the influence and legacy of these histories. The stories include familial accounts of well-known figures like Peadar O'Donnell, Tom Kettle, and Hanna and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, alongside accounts of men and women unknown/forgotten by the larger historical narrative. The contributions include accounts of nationalists and unionists; men, women, and young people; British army soldiers and Irish Volunteers; members of Cumann na mBan and the ICA. Through very real human experiences and personal stories, it demonstrates the complex ways in which people engaged with the events of the period and the diversity of contemporary experience. The contributions discuss how family history and memory was imparted and aim to explore the legacy of this on succeeding generations. As such, the volume reflects the impact of the revolutionary period on the present generation from a lifecourse perspective. Some of these family stories and memories have been buried for generations, such as those of family members who served in the British army during the First World War or of RUC men in rural Ireland, or the real and personal impact of the Civil War, thus shedding new light on the complex politics of memory in post-independence Ireland. A framing introductory chapter from the editors, a foreword by President Michael D. Higgins on ethics and memory, and a background chapter from Gearoid O'Tuathaigh weave together the key themes and context for this volume, for example gender, memory, violence, reconciliation, and family history. [Subject: Irish Studies, History, Sociology]

The Proclamation of the Irish Republic is the most significant document in Irish history. The credo contained therein, to cherish 'all of the children of the nation equally, ' has come to define its seven signatories, marking a common bond in their life's work. Their memory intensely moulded by their political activities, history forgets the diverse background from which these seven men came-family histories that touched upon twenty counties and economic environments ranging from extreme poverty to privilege. The Family Histories of the Seven Signatories is an indispensable genealogical history that uncovers the disparate lives that came together through the will for Irish independence. Thomas Clarke and James Connolly were born in the USA, their family having been uprooted by the Famine; Thomas MacDonagh and Patrick Pearse, alternatively, had immediate English forebears. The signatories' pasts from before they were born were an essential component in determining their ideas-each firmly their own-of an Irish republic. Their extended histories, fully disclosed within the pages of this book, are a riveting realisation of the complexities that defined nineteenth century Ireland and the lives of the seven signatories whose pasts reveal the many-faceted draw towards rebellion. [Subject: History, Genealogy, Irish Studies

The story of the Hales family from Bandon epitomises the whole revolutionary period in Ireland. They were involved from the establishment of the Irish Volunteers in West Cork and were closely associated with well-known revolutionary figures, including Michael Collins, Tom Barry and Liam Deasy. Both Seán and Tom were company commanders in the IRA in the area. The signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921 split the family and led to the two brothers taking opposing sides in the Civil War that would follow. Tom Hales was the most senior Republican officer on the scene of the chaotic ambush at Béal na mBláth that led to the shooting of Michael Collins. Seán Hales was himself assassinated in Dublin by Republicans, following a vote in Dáil Éireann to allow the Provisional Government to increase its powers to penalise Republican prisoners.The story of these brothers and the rest of the family gives a unique insight into life in Ireland in this tumultuous period.

The narrative of the Irish revolution as a chronology of great men and male militarism, with women presumed to have either played a subsidiary role or no role at all, requires reconsideration. Women and feminists were extremely active in Irish revolutionary causes from 1912 onwards, but ultimately it was the men as revolutionary ‘leaders’ who took all the power, and indeed all the credit, after independence. Women from different backgrounds were activists in significant numbers and women across Ireland were profoundly impacted by the overall violence and tumult of the era, but they were then relegated to the private sphere, with the memory of their vital political and military role in the revolution forgotten and erased. Women and the Irish Revolution examines diverse aspects of women’s experiences in the revolution after the Easter Rising. The complex role of women as activists, the detrimental impact of violence and social and political divisions on women, the role of women in the foundation of the new State, and dynamics of remembrance and forgetting are explored in detail by leading scholars in sociology, history, politics, and literary studies. Important and timely, and featuring previously unpublished material, this book will prompt essential new public conversations on the experiences of women in the Irish revolution.

'To Speak of Easter Week' draws on oral history recordings relating to the 1916 Rising and its aftermath, recorded by Maurice O'Keeffe for the Irish Life and Lore Series. Based on the testimonies of the sons and daughters of the rebels, their granddaughters, grandsons and other close relatives, the book examines the very human legacy of Easter Week and looks at the different ways in which the family members have internalised and attempted to make sense of the actions of their antecedents. James Connolly's great-grandson and amonn Ceannt's grand-niece, Kathleen Clarke's niece and Con Colbert's nephew, among many others, trace their family history from 1916 through the generations down to the present, and examine the multi-layered meaning of their shared heritage. They tell their stories in their own unique voices, speaking of the pride and the glory, the grief and the agony, the loss and the very real burden of history. B&W photos.

June 8, 1921. Ireland.A British Officer is shot dead on a remote hillside south of Dublin.November 22, 2015. United Kingdom.Former police detective, Jayne Sinclair, now working as a genealogical investigator, receives a phone call from an adopted American billionaire asking her to discover the identity of his real father.How are the two events linked?Jayne Sinclair has only three clues to help her: a photocopied birth certificate, a stolen book and an old photograph. And it soon becomes apparent somebody else is on the trail of the mystery. A killer who will stop at nothing to prevent Jayne discovering the secret hidden in the pastThe Irish Inheritance takes us through the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Irish War of Independence, combining a search for the truth of the past with all the tension of a modern-day thriller.It is the first in a series of novels featuring Jayne Sinclair, genealogical detective.