War and Revolution Conference ‘ Place, Identity and Conflict: War and Revolution in the West of Ireland, 1913 – 18’

Place, Identity & Conflict: The West of Ireland in War & Revolution, 1913-19

This upcoming conference explores War and Revolution in the West of Ireland between 1913 and 1918. The conference runs for two days on Friday and Saturday 1/2 July in the Aula Maxima, NUIG. All talks are free and open to the public.

Identity and a sense of communal resilience lent meaning to chaotic events in Ireland in the decade before the foundation of the state. In the face of social and political upheaval, regional, sectional and ethnic identities offered an opportunity to impose order on social change, making upheaval and loss less threatening, giving meaning to new political realities. The archival resources pertaining to the revolutionary period in Ireland have changed dramatically in the last decade. This public conference explores the contrasting interpretations of war and revolution in the West of Ireland through the conflicting prisms of class, regional identity, religious faith, language, ethnicity and gender.

Conference programme includes talks on contrasting perspectives of the period from the world of the ‰Û÷big house’, the lives of rural women, the Irish in America, the urban poor and a range of competing narratives. The crucial issues of land, recruitment to the military, the emergence of the Irish Volunteers, the irish language, the Easter Rising in Galway and the social history of ordinary peoples’ lives will all be examined.

The conference kicks off at 9.30 am on both days and enquires can be sent to Dr Conor McNamara, conor.mcnamara@nuigalway.ie