Historians and the Civil War
Historians and the Civil War
This chapter discusses the debate that exists among Irish historians about the civil war and critiques the existing consensus that the civil war was ‘the birth of Irish democracy’. It shows how two books written by two amateur historians in the inter-war era — Dorothy MacArdle and P. S. O'Hegarty — continue to frame scholarly debate about the civil war. At the heart of this debate is the question of whether divisions over the majority rule principle meant that the Treaty divide was irrepressible, or whether the outbreak of civil war was ultimately down to British pressure. Since this is exactly the same issue which polarized relations among the Treaty sides in 1922, the conclusion is that Irish historiography has simply continued the civil war by other means. The chapter concludes with some comparative reflections on Irish political development.
Keywords: Irish historians, P. S. O'Hegarty, Dorothy MacArdle, democracy, IRA, historiography
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