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Radio War Nerd EP #252 — Irish War of Independence & Civil War, with Brian Hanley (Patreon)

Published:
2020-10-31 02:05:09
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: Dr. Brian Hanley, Trinity College 

Recorded: October 26, 2020

As listeners know, the War Nerd has gone back many times to the Irish insurgency against the British empire to compare/contrast & make sense of so many other insurgencies around the world. This episode we're joined by historian Brian Hanley of Trinity College in Dublin, author of several books on the IRA and the Irish insurgencies & wars of the 20th century (see below), to tell the story of the Irish War of Independence (1919-21) and the Irish Civil War (1922-3).

First - we discuss impressions of Belfast, plastic bullets & Sinn Fein strategy during The Troubles . . . good-news elections in Bolivia and Chile . . . "we're gonna move Biden left" . . .

At 45:30 - Dr. Brian Hanley joins us to talk about the the wars in Ireland in the years after World War I. 

Buy Dr. Hanley's books: 

* "The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party" 

* "The IRA - A Documentary History" 

* "The IRA, 1926 1936" . . . 

Total time: 1:58:45

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

mickthebrick

45 minute intro chat... don't tell me john moved back into a loyalist area lol

Robert Rowe

That bit in "The Commitments"- "Irish are the blacks of UK"

oh no

This is an incredible discussion, I live on the Irish border and this has clarified so many details about the conflict, so little of the details are remembered in modern Ireland. Id love to hear Hanley talk about how this sets the context for the troubles

leedo

This was wonderful. Interested to hear the follow up. I'd also suggest interviewing Daniel Finn about his book One Man’s Terrorist: A Political History of the IRA.

Hugh

John - your comment re: not recognising the business-interested etc Catholicism in Bolivia(?). Like you, I'm from a Irish-Catholic background and went through an Australian Catholic education based on a tradition of Irish Catholics struggling to make their place in an Anglican-ruled society that was stacked against them (now more a cherished origin story than current experience, since multicultural has expanded our sense of same vs different). Irish Catholicism has a few hundred years of being "Loser Catholicism" - a religion associated with the underdog, associated with a people colonised and subverted by people who believe differently (even if only in relatively small ways). We can make the mistake of thinking our universal Catholic doctrine means a universal Catholic culture, and mistaking cultural elements of our Irish Loser Catholicism as shared by all other Catholics. Societies where Catholicism has existed comfortably in the ruling class looks different. You also then get evolutions of Catholicism in different classes (eg Liberation theology in Latam Catholicism). On the other hand and a little contrary to this thesis, I had an interesting chat with a Genoese Catholic once who recounted a Catholic guilt cultural experience that was closer to my Irish Catholicism than I expected. There's probably also some offshoot culture stuff here - emigrant communities who clutch tightly to ideas about how things were at the time they left the Irish mothership in places like the Americas and Australia, while the Irish mothership itself has moved on (and embraced being an EU tax haven).

woof dog

More newspaper sounds please. Thanks

Shad Narcher

Great interview! I’m sure I will listen again. The bit about the anti-colonial atmosphere surrounding the Paris Peace Conference has tied in with too many conversations and books I’ve read recently. It occurs to me that this was a significant event, laying out what we were going to be killing and dying for over the next century. Considering all of the important figures who were inspired or influenced by the proceedings, I have to ask if anyone can recommend a RWN-friendly book that digs into it? A couple of recently-read examples where it comes up a bit: A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell - it’s got John Foster Dulles deal-making at the Conference on behalf of the USA and Sullivan & Cromwell clients. How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States - has nationalists from around the world attempting to get Wilson’s ear at the Conference. Gandhi was refused travel to Paris by the empire. Egyptian Nationalist Sa’d Zaghlul learned English in order to attend and got exiled to Malta for his efforts, which incited the 1919 revolution, inspiring proto-jihadi Sayyid Qutb. Pedro Albizu Campos got waylayed in the US South and missed his shot at attending. Ho Chi Minh was running around the halls passing out pamphlets. I had no idea! Mao called them a bunch of robbers.

Pavel Abramov

Would love for you to interview my former history lecturer Ruan O'Donnell who wrote some great Irish history books, in particular about Robert Emmett but also touched a lot on the rural warfare during the war of independence.

Jimothy Realname

Only tangentially related, but I played recently released WWI game Beyond the Wire, a developer of which was recently a guest on the pod. It's good, folks.

Kevin Walsh

Just finished listening to the episode. In relation to subsequent politics, the Cumann na nGaedheal (pro-Treaty) government was pretty far to the libertarian right. It saw itself as the party of law and order, pursued a free trade policy, and cut social welfare payments. During the 1930s, De Valera reversed the social welfare cuts, had a protectionist economic policy, tried to promote tillage agriculture instead of pasture (which meant more employment opportunities for agricultural labourers) and unilaterally suspended payment on disputed debt payments to the UK, resulting in the Economic War. There were also some modest efforts to redistribute land which I don't think amounted to much. So Fianna Fáil functioned as the 'left' in Ireland in the 1930s in a similar way to the way the Democrats function as 'the left' in the modern day US.

mark

No more updates from Hanibale?

prof. eucalyptus

love the instrumental interludes on this one!

xnfec

It was mentioned that Johnson neither needs the DUP nor is sympathetic to them. This is probably true. However, Michael Gove is sympathetic to them and is in a good position to take over from Johnson when the Tories defenestrate him, likely early 2021. Gove is a Scot and a Unionist and wrote an essay calling the Good Friday Agreement a stain on Britain.

teh_drewski

About to get to the interview but I just wanted to applaud John on his absolute masterclass of understatement at the start describing the British Empire as "not quite" cuddly.

Stefan

Great episode. Btw can someone identify the musical interludes in this episode? I assume they are from Brendon

Peter Z

Some good info but maybe I needed more context - couldn't follow the timeline.