PRONI is delighted to host a conversation with Professor Eunan O’Halpin, one of the authors of the recently publication, the Dead of the Revolution. Eunan will be interviewed by Dr Darragh Gannon , Research Fellow, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast.

The Dead of the Revolution aspires to be the Lost Lives of the period from April 1916 to December 1921. It identifies a total of 2850 deaths arising from Irish political violence between those months (504 in 1916, 2346 from 1917 to 1921). Organised by day, as well as listing and describing each death consecutively, it provides analysis by location (county), by responsibility, affiliation, religion and gender of the fatality, and so forth.

While discussing the overall picture of fatalities - almost all of which, after the Rising, fall in the months between June 1920 and December 1921) - the discussion will focus particularly on the nine Ulster counties. Why were most of them relatively free of fatal political violence when measured by population - Tyrone has the fewest deaths x 10,000 of population, followed by Cavan, Fermanagh, Down and Donegal - with the exceptions of Antrim (overwhelmingly Belfast) and Londonderry (overwhelmingly Derry city)? The discussion will also focus on the variety of sources available for the study as a whole, and ask why the sources we could identify from what be termed Ulster unionist and loyalist communities and organisations are so few and far between as compared with nationalist and republican narratives. In recent years we have seen the revivication of unionist memory of the Altnaveigh massacre of 1922: what else, of actions performed as well as actions suffered, is still shielded from public knowledge?

Eunan O'Halpin is Bank of Ireland Professor of Contemporary Irish History, and Director of the Trinity Centre for Contemporary Irish History. He was previously Professor of Government at Dublin City University (1998-2000).

Dr. Darragh Gannon is Research Fellow to the AHRC-funded project 'A global history of Irish Revolution, 1916-1923'. He has published widely on the history of the Irish revolution and the Irish diaspora, including Proclaiming a Republic: Ireland, 1916 and the National Collection (Irish Academic Press, 2016).

This event is taking place on Zoom. Registration closes one hour before the event and an invite link will be sent to everyone registered one hour before the beginning of the event.