The Irish Revolution, 1916-1923 by Marie Coleman

Author:Marie Coleman [Coleman, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Modern, 20th Century, Europe, Ireland, Great Britain
ISBN: 9781317801467
Google: BeMkAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

THE GEOGRAPHY OF WAR

The question of why certain young men joined the IRA is linked to the question of why the IRA was more active in certain areas of the country than others at various times during the course of fighting from the Rising until the end of the Civil War. The War of Independence was a series of small localised campaigns, rather than a nation-wide struggle, with little co-ordination between brigades or overall control by IRA GHQ, in spite of its efforts to impose some form of uniformity. The scale and extent of IRA violence varied widely over the course of the war and the most active areas of the country changed. In certain areas of the country, such as Munster (and especially Cork) and Dublin City, the IRA remained active throughout the conflict. Other counties, such as Longford between November 1920 and February 1921, were active for a sustained period but then faded. Longford was the only midland county to experience a high level of IRA activity that was not matched by surrounding counties such as Westmeath, Cavan, Leitrim or Roscommon.

Some counties which had a proud tradition of fighting in 1916, in particular Wexford, were inexplicably dormant during the guerrilla campaign, and some slow starters (Mayo) had made up ground by the time of the truce. Even within individual counties and brigades the levels of activity and violence varied dramatically. In the small county of Longford, IRA activity was confined to an enclave in the north of the county around the towns of Ballinalee and Granard, while the south of the county saw very little action at all. In Cork, the contrast between west and north Cork was striking.

Historians have suggested numerous theories to explain this regional disparity in IRA activity. In the same way that some youths joined the IRA because they came from families with a tradition of political activism, the IRA might have emerged more naturally in parts of the country that had seen radicalism and political violence previously, a good example of which was the Land War. IRA veterans, such as Florence O’Donogue, also considered it important to have good local leaders – ‘The success of IRA operations depended very largely upon the initiative of local Commanders particularly at brigade and battalion level’ – although more recent historians, in particular David Fitzpatrick, dispute this.

Local socio-economic circumstances also appear to have been influential. Neither the most prosperous areas of the east coast or the richer farming areas of Munster, nor the poorest regions along the western seaboard were among the areas where the IRA was most active, suggesting that a certain level of economic comfort was a prerequisite for involvement in revolutionary activity. Conversely, the better off had too much of a stake in society to seek the overthrow of the status quo.

The guerrilla nature of the conflict also determined activity to some extent. Although Peter Hart is sceptical that physical terrain had much effect on whether or not the IRA was active in certain

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