Ireland 1922: Women in independence, partition and civil war

This event will take place online. It is free of charge and you can watch it here from 1 February at 6 p.m.

From the handover of Dublin Castle, to the dawning of a new border across the island, to the fateful divisions of the civil war, a new book Ireland 1922 provides a snapshot of a year of turmoil, tragedy and, amidst it all, state-building as the Irish revolution drew to a close.

Join Fionnuala Walsh, Lindsey Earner-Byrne and Mary McAuliffe chaired by Darragh Gannon to explore a turning point in Irish history; one whose legacy remains controversial a century on. They will discuss events during that year, how they impacted on the year and the creation of the new state, and consider what role gender has to play in this Decade of Centenaries.

About the speakers

Darragh Gannon (chair) is a lecturer in Irish Studies at University College Dublin. He has published widely on the Irish diaspora and the Irish Revolution, including Proclaiming a republic: Ireland, 1916 and the National Collection (Irish Academic Press, 2016) and Conflict, diaspora, and empire: Irish nationalism in Great Britain, 1912–1922 (Cambridge University Press, 2021). He is currently completing a monograph entitled Worlds of revolution: Ireland’s ‘global moment’, 1919–1923.

Lindsey Earner-Byrne holds SALI Chair of Irish Gender History at University College Cork. She has published on Irish social, gender and welfare history with an emphasis on the intersections between policy and lived experience. Her most recent book, co-authored with Diane Urquhart, explores the history of abortion focusing on differences and commonalities of experience on the island of Ireland.

Mary McAuliffe is a historian and Assistant Professor in Gender Studies at UCD. She recently published a biography of the Scottish-born Irish revolutionary and feminist, Margaret Skinnider (UCD Press, 2020), and is currently researching and writing on gendered and sexual violence during the Irish revolutionary period, to be published in 2022.

Fionnuala Walsh is assistant professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin. She completed her PhD and Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellowship at Trinity College Dublin. Her first monograph Irish women and the Great War was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. She is the secretary of the Women’s History Association of Ireland.

This St Brigid’s Day event is brought to you by The Royal Irish Academy and the Department of Foreign Affairs.