7 July 1922: Free State forces attack Skeog House

Ireland 1922, edited by Darragh Gannon and Fearghal McGarry, features 50 essays from leading international scholars that explore a turning point in history, one whose legacy remains controversial a century on. Building on their own expertise, and on the wealth of recent scholarship provoked by the Decade of Centenaries, each contributor focuses on one event that illuminates a key aspect of revolutionary Ireland, demonstrating how the events of this year would shape the new states established in 1922. Together, these essays explore many of the key issues and debates of a year that transformed Ireland.

In collaboration with Century Ireland, we are making the 50 essays freely available online. Today's essay is by Breandán MacSuibhne and it covers the attack by Free State forces on Skeog House, a mansion near the Derry-Donegal county line which had recently become the border. 

On Wednesday, 6 May 1981, the Detroit Free Press sent staff reporter Robert H. Emmers to the Gaelic League bar on Michigan Avenue to get local reaction to events in Ireland. There, Emmers found an old man sitting at the end of the bar, drinking whiskey and pulling on Lucky Strikes, the smoke slowly curling above him. Opposite him on the wall was a greying poster of the 1916 Proclamation with portraits of its seven signatories. Surveying the dim lounge, Emmers saw another face, that of Bobby Sands, laughing up from fliers scattered around the bar; the fliers carried details of a memorial service—he had died the previous day at 27 years of age. Continue reading (you will be redirected to the website of Century Ireland)

Ireland 1922, edited by Darragh Gannon and Fearghal McGarry, is published by the Royal Irish Academy with support from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries 2012-2023 programme.