The Irish Revolution - the war between the British authorities and the newly-formed IRA - was the first successful revolt anywhere against the British Empire. This is a vividly-written, compelling narrative placing events in Ireland in the wider context of a world in turmoil after the ending of a global war: one that saw the collapse of empires and the rise of fascist Italy and communist Russia. Walsh shows how developments in Europe and America had a profound effect on Ireland, influencing the attitudes and expectations of combatants and civilians. Walsh also brings to life what Irish people who were not fully involved in the fighting were doing - the plays they went to, the exciting films they watched in the new cinemas, the books they read and the work they did. The freedom from Britain that most of them wanted was, when it came, a bitter disappointment to a generation aware of the promise of modernity.
Maurice Walsh is the author of the groundbreaking The News from Ireland: Foreign Correspondents and the Irish Revolution which was described by Colm Toibin as 'an invaluable book'. An award-winning documentary maker, he has reported from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the United States and Europe. His essays, reviews and reportage have appeared in Granta, the London Review of Books, the Dublin Review, the New Statesman, and other newspapers in the UK, Ireland and the US. He was Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan in 2001, and Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford in 2010/11.
Walsh
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Weitere Infos & Material
| 11 November | | Armistice between Germany and the Allied powers ends First World War |
| 14 November | | Tomáš Masaryk elected president of Czechoslovakia |
| 16 November | | Hungary proclaims itself a republic |
| 14 December | | UK general election voting: Lloyd George’s Liberal and Conservative coalition wins a huge majority; Sinn Féin wins 73 of Ireland’s 105 seats |
| 15 January | | Spartacist uprising crushed in Berlin, Rosa Luxemburg shot |
| 18 January | | Peace conference opens in Paris |
| 21 January | | Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann, inaugurated in Dublin. Two policemen killed in an ambush by Irish Volunteers at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary |
| 5 February | | Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launch United Artists film studio |
| 8 March | | Anti-British riots erupt in Cairo |
| 23 March | | Mussolini launches Italian fascist movement |
| 1 April | | Following his escape from Lincoln Prison in February, Eamon de Valera elected president of Dáil Éireann |
| 13 April | | In India, 379 protesting civilians massacred by British troops at Amritsar |
| 14–25 April | | General strike in Limerick sees the formation of the Limerick soviet |
| 11 June | | De Valera arrives in New York at the start of an eighteen-month tour of the United States |
| 23 June | | Detective Inspector Hunt shot dead in Market Square, Thurles |
| 28 June | | Treaty of Versailles signed |
| 31 July | | Detective Patrick Smyth of G Division of the DMP shot dead by IRA Squad in Dublin. |
| 12 September | | Dáil Éireann declared illegal |
| 19 December | | Viceroy Lord French survives assassination attempt in Dublin |
| 2 January | | Ex-servicemen recruited to reinforce the Royal Irish Constabulary; they become known as the Black and Tans |
| 15 January | | Sinn Féin scores big successes in local government elections |
| 13–17 March | | Attempted right-wing coup fails in Germany |
| 20 March | | Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomás Mac Curtain, shot dead at his home |
| 26 March | | Retired magistrate investigating Dáil finances, Alan Bell, shot dead in Dublin |
| 3 April | | Hundreds of tax offices and abandoned police barracks burned by the IRA |
| 12 April | | General strike in support of hunger strikers at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin |
| 19 July | | Sectarian rioting begins in Derry; 19 killed over several days |
| 21 July | | Expulsion of Catholics from Belfast shipyards sets off three days of violence |
| 25 July | | French troops occupy Damascus to begin French mandate in Syria |
| 27 July | | Auxiliary Divison of the RIC is launched, made up of ex-British Army officers |
| 6 August | | Dáil Éireann declares boycott of goods from protestant firms in Belfast |
| 9 August | | Restoration of Order in Ireland Act gives military sweeping powers including trial of civilians by court martial |
| 22 August | | Assassination of Detective Inspector Swanzy in Lisburn sparks renewed violence in Belfast |
| 20 September | | Black and Tans ransack Balbriggan in County Dublin |
| 14 October | | One of the Soloheadbeg ambushers, Sean Treacy, shot dead in a street battle with Auxiliaries and British intelligence agents in Dublin |
| 25 October | | Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, dies in Brixton Prison in London after 74 days on hunger strike |
| 1 November | | IRA volunteer, Kevin Barry (aged eighteen), hanged for the murder of a British soldier in the first execution since the 1916 Rising |
| 2 November | | The Republican Warren G. Harding, an isolationist, wins the US presidential election |
| 21 November | | IRA Squad organised by Michael Collins kills 14 suspected British secret service agents; Black and Tans kill 12 during a football match at Croke Park |
| 28 November | | 18 Auxiliaries killed in an ambush at Kilmichael, County Cork |
| 10 December | | The American Mamie Smith becomes the first black singer to make a gramophone record |
| 11 December | | Following an IRA ambush in Cork, Auxiliaries and Black and Tans set fire to large parts of the centre of Cork city |
| 23 December | | British parliament passes the Better Government of Ireland Act, creating two parliaments, one for Southern Ireland (covering 26 counties) and another for Northern Ireland (6 counties) |
| 1 January | | The destruction of seven houses in County Cork by military order signals the start of official reprisals. |
| 7 March | | The Mayor of Limerick, George Clancy, and the former mayor, Michael O’Callaghan, shot dead at their homes |
| 24 May | | General election for parliaments in Northern and Southern Ireland: Sinn Féin candidates returned unopposed to 124 of the 128 seats in the south; in Northern Ireland, Unionists win 40 seats, Sinn Féin 6 and Nationalists 6 |
| 25 May | | Custom House in Dublin set on fire in IRA attack on headquarters of Local Government Board and burns for five days, destroying thousands of administrative records. |
| 22 June | | George V opens Northern Ireland parliament and calls for reconciliation in Ireland. |
| 11 July | | Truce between British forces and IRA comes into effect |
| 14–21 July | | Lloyd George meets de Valera in London three times to explore grounds for peace talks |
| 9 October– | | Anglo-Irish conference opens at Downing Street |
| 6 December | | to negotiate final settlement of the Irish question |
| 6 December | | Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in London at 2.10 a.m. |
| 14 December | | Dáil Éireann meets to debate the treaty |
| 16 December | | British parliament ratifies Anglo-Irish Treaty |
| 7 January | | Dáil Éireann approves the treaty by 64 votes to 57 |
| 16 January | | Michael Collins, as chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State, takes formal control of Dublin Castle |
| 2 February | | James Joyce’s novel Ulysses published in Paris |
| 11 February | | Four Special Constables from Northern Ireland and one IRA man killed in clash at Clones railway station in County Monaghan |
| 27 March | | Anti-treaty convention representing almost fifty brigades of the IRA meets... |
