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Active Service and Environmental Damage in Revolutionary Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2023

Justin Dolan Stover Open the ORCID record for Justin Dolan Stover [Opens in a new window]
Justin Dolan Stover*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209-8079, United States
*
stovjust@isu.edu
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Abstract

The Irish Revolution inflicted significant damage to built-up and natural landscapes between 1916 and 1923. Destruction transcended national and ideological divisions and remained a fixture within Irish urban and rural landscapes years after independence, presenting an Ireland politically transformed yet physically disfigured. An environmental reading of this transformative period calls into question many of its established lessons and interpretative boundaries, including the agency and considerations of those who participated in and witnessed it. This article examines the extent and impacts of environmental destruction experienced on communal levels throughout the revolution, and how a war that was waged on higher ideological grounds very often disrupted and alienated the everyday lives of communities and individuals.

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Article
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Contemporary European History , Volume 32 , Special Issue 4: New Histories of the Irish Revolution , November 2023 , pp. 520 - 531
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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63 The entire Kilpatrick Company undertook this work each night and some days throughout early 1921. Statement of Michael Riordan, B.M.H., W.S. 1638, 21; Statement of David Hall, B.M.H., W.S. 1539, 7; Statement of Con Kelleher, B.M.H., W.S. 1654, 9–11.

64 General Cork to Irish Command, Parkgate, 21 Mar. 1921, WO 35/88B; Freeman's Journal, 7 June 1921.

65 Sheehan, Hearts and Mines, 74–5.

66 Statement of Leo Callaghan, B.M.H., W.S. 978, 20.

67 Statement of Simon Donnelly, B.M.H., W.S. 481, 26; see also, Belfast Newsletter, 29 Nov. 1920.

68 ‘I.R.A., G.H.Q. Documents D/Engineering. No indication in records as to placedate capture’, various dates, July 1922 onward (Irish Military Archives, Captured Documents, Lot No. 229).

69 Director/Engineering to Battalion Commandant, 5 Nov. 1922 (IMA, Captured Documents, Lot 229).

70 Kautt, Ambushes and Armour, 130.

71 Clare County Council's claim to compensation (Ireland) Commission for War damage caused by roads from 21 Jan. 1919 to 11 July 1921, by Crown Forces. 27, 31 Mar. 1922, P.L.K. Dobbin, County Surveyor (TNA, FIN/1/1661).

72 Augusteijn, From Public Defiance to Guerilla Warfare, 69.

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