Trinity in war and revolution 1912-1923

Tomas Irish

Description

This book situates the history of Trinity College Dublin within the great upheavals and changes that were taking place in Ireland and the wider world in the transformative period between 1912 and 1923. The period saw Trinity and its environs profoundly changed. The book uses Trinity as a way of exploring some of the central themes and tensions of these years, themes that are usually examined separately: Irish involvement in the First World War; the Easter Rising of 1916; the violent struggle for Irish independence; the end of the Civil War; and the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. It views these events through the prism of the university's development, arguing that these contexts cannot be divorced from one another. Trinity was at the centre- physically, intellectually, symbolically-of these seismic events in local, national and international history, and each had a great impact upon the institution and its development in the twentieth century. Cumulatively, they transformed the university by 1923.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Revolutions
• Ireland
• Revolution
• Stephen Ireland

Informations

• Publié par: Royal Irish Academy
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908996961
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

TRINITY IN WAR AND REVOLUTION 1912-1923
TOM S IRISH

Trinity in War and Revolution 1912-1923
First published 2015 Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2 www.ria.ie
Text Tom s Irish and Trinity College Dublin
ISBN 978-1-908996-96-1
All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owners.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Editor: Helena King Design: Fidelma Slattery Index: Eileen O Neill
Printed in Italy by Printer Trento
Opening images: Detail from Ireland s memorial records 1914-1918 (Dublin, 1923), vol. vii, illustration by Harry Clarke. Courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy.
Halt! Who goes there? Detail from a World War I recruitment poster, 1915. RIA C 32 2 E, No. 60; courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy.
Opposite: Detail from O.T.C. a forecast , illustration from T.C.D.: a College Miscellany , 2 March 1910, p. 34. Reproduced by permission of the Board of Trinity College Dublin.
Front endpaper: Troops in Front Square (Parliament Square) during the Easter Rising, April 1916. TDC, MS Ex-02-057-HI; reproduced by permission of the Board of Trinity College Dublin.
Back endpaper: Parliament Square, T.C.D. , by M.K. Hughes, c . 1914. NLI, ET C155; courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements Foreword Prologue
INTRODUCTION
Behind the Great Wall
CHAPTER 1
Trinity and Ireland 1912-14
CHAPTER 2
Trinity and the First World War
CHAPTER 3
Trinity and the Easter Rising
CHAPTER 4
The Politics of War and Revolution 1914-19
CHAPTER 5
The End of Old Certainties 1919-23
EPILOGUE
Eppur si Muove -Towards a New Trinity, 1923-52
Picture credits Bibliography
Members of the Trinity College Dublin Officers Training Corps marching through Front Square, 1910.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
One of the central arguments of this book is that a university is more than four walls containing lecture halls, laboratories and libraries. It is a community. Throughout the book, I try to show how a unique group identity formed amongst Trinity s students, staff and alumni as the university negotiated the cataclysmic local, national and international events of the first half of the twentieth century. Sharing the same space, living, studying and socialising together created bonds that were strong and durable, and which people carried with them for much of their post-university lives. This wider Trinity community stretched across Dublin, Ireland and the wider world of the time, as it does for the students, staff and alumni of the university today.
This book is a testament to the strength of these ties. At every step my research was aided by Trinity academics and alumni who freely gave their time and expertise to help in my writing of this part of the history of an institution that has played an important part in so many lives. The book is immeasurably richer for their suggestions and recollections. I would like to thank Peter Boyle, Anna Chahoud, Aidan Clarke, Davis Coakley, Ronald Cox, Eric Finch, Roy Johnston, Mike Jones, John Parnell, Michael Purser, David Simms, Cyril Smyth, Tom Turpin, Denis Weaire and Patrick Wyse Jackson. In the Department of History, I am thankful to John Horne, Anne Dolan, Ciaran O Neill, Ciaran Wallace, Conor Morrissey and David Ditchburn for their support of the project that led to the publication of this book. I am especially grateful to David Fitzpatrick for reading a full draft of the manuscript. Farther afield, Heather Jones, Roy Foster and Norman Vance shared their expertise and enthusiasm for the project and made many useful suggestions.
The staff of the Trinity library was unfailingly helpful, and I am grateful for the advice and assistance of the departments of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books. In particular, I thank Jane Maxwell for her enthusiasm and efficiency in dealing with queries about the college s vast archival collections. I would also like to thank D ire Courtney, the Records Secretary of the College Historical Society (2014-15), for making the Hist s collections available to me.
Outside of the walls, but very much part of the college community, I am deeply grateful to the Luce and Woods families for sharing their rich family connections to Trinity with me, as well as for allowing me access to private letters, memorabilia and other papers. I am also thankful to the Trinity Association and Trust for funding a research trip to London in 2013, which facilitated additional work on the book.
This book would not have been written without the incredible support and enthusiasm of Patrick Geoghegan, who mentored the project, provided astute observations on its development, and was instrumental in getting the project up and running in 2012. I would also like to thank Ruth Hegarty, Helena King and Fidelma Slattery at the Royal Irish Academy for their support of the project and assistance in producing this monograph.
It is an immeasurable privilege to contribute to the history of an institution as venerable as Trinity College Dublin, especially as it has already been served by excellent histories from eminent scholars such as J.V. Luce, R.B. McDowell and D.A. Webb. My greatest debt, therefore, is to Patrick Prendergast, the forty-fourth provost of Trinity College Dublin, for both entrusting me with this tremendous responsibility and giving me the opportunity to immerse myself fully and freely in the college s history.
Tom s Irish
D UBLIN , F EBRUARY 2015
FOREWORD
In 1912, it was taken for granted by all but a radical few that Ireland s future lay within the United Kingdom. A bill giving home rule to Ireland was introduced in the Westminster parliament, and it was passed in 1914. But 1914 also witnessed the outbreak of the First World War, a war that shocked and traumatised all of Europe with its ferocity and loss of life. In 1916, a small but determined group, taking advantage of that war and serving (as they put it) neither King nor Kaiser, staged a military rebellion in Ireland. In doing so they set off a chain of events that led eventually to the War of Independence, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and the creation of an independent Irish state. By 1923 Ireland had become divided politically into the twenty-six county Free State and the six counties of Northern Ireland- an outcome neither desired nor foreseen in 1912. In the course of a decade, Ireland had experienced a rapid and elemental transformation.
When An Taoiseach Enda Kenny, TD, launched the Decade of Centenaries in 2012, he asked that events of 1912 to 1922 be studied and commemorated by communities around the country. In response to that call, Dr Tom s Irish has written this history of how Trinity College Dublin experienced those years.
A native of Crossabeg, Co. Wexford, Dr Irish is a Trinity graduate and gold-medallist in history, and he was awarded a PhD for his research on universities during the Great War. Knowing the college as both an undergraduate and a postgraduate, and then as a postdoctoral researcher, he is especially well placed to write this history. In the process of doing so he has interviewed many people, engaging with students, staff and alumni. He has consulted archives throughout Ireland and the UK, including the private papers of some of the public figures of the time. Most importantly, and with great originality, he has also studied the records of Trinity student clubs and societies of the early decades of the twentieth century, and has uncovered-perhaps for the first time-the authentic voice of the students through their vibrant, energetic and marvellously expressive publications.
In an important sense, therefore, this book is a community history. Many Trinity people will be familiar with the individuals whose names appear, and will be fascinated by their reaction to tumultuous events in Irish history. So too will our neighbours in the locality of Dublin city centre: the St Andrew s National School on Great Brunswick Street (now the St Andrew s Resource Centre on Pearse Street) was closed during the week of fighting in Easter 1916. In the school s roll book, the headmaster wrote simply but effectively across the blank pages: Poets Rebellion . But this book is also an institutional history in a wider sense-the story of a university being forced to adapt to circumstances.
And adapt it did. Slowly, but with deliberation, Trinity transitioned from its role as an integral part of the education system of the British empire to become the Irish institution with a global reputation that we know today. All this change, however, didn t come without some stresses and tensions. There were disappointments, mistakes, some failed careers, and perhaps some shattered notions of privilege and superiority. But Trinity succeeded.
There is much to be gained from reading about an institution whose history intersects both the events of the First World War and the dramatic changes of Ireland s revolutionary period. We learn, for instance, that in 1916 British soldiers were billeted in the college-some on furlough from the front, and others who had been destined for France but were routed to Ireland instead. The Trinity Centre for Health Sciences at St James s Hospital (then the site of the South Dublin Union) is where amonn Ceannt, one of the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation, commanded a garrison of rebel forces; one of his key lieutenants was W.T. Cosgrave, a future leader of the Free State government.
And rather than see the First World War and the events of the Irish revolution as separate or in isolation, this book affirms the value of studying them together. In so doing it is possible to discern complex forc