GALLERY: Five top historians address WAHS conference

Westmeath Archaeological and Historical Society’s sixth annual conference drew a strong attendance to The Greville Arms Hotel on Saturday last, April 1, and the five speakers gave well prepared and presented talks on all aspects of a difficult theme in the Decade of Centenaries.

Dublin based historian Michael Nolan described the course of the Civil War in Westmeath and instanced the attacks on businesses in Ballynacargy and Kilbeggan, where the newly established Civic Guard was not yet fully operational.

He also cited the disproportionate effects on the Protestant community, who declined by 21% between 1911 and 1926. Much of the violence was linked to the pogroms then happening in Belfast as well as lingering agrarian unrest and land hunger.

Local historian Ruth Illingworth gave an account of life in Mullingar in 1923. She spoke about the security put in place at the Water Works on Mill Road, where her grandfather, James Raleigh, was resident engineer.

Many in the town tried to establish an understanding between the warring factions, especially Bernard O’Reilly, a carpenter from St Loman’s Terrace.

The Soldiers’ Home on the Fair Green was turned into a hotel called the Fair View, because of its location beside the town commons, a site now occupied by Penneys.

The pre-eminent Irish poet, Vona Groarke, talked about her recent book, ‘Hereafter: the Telling life of Ellen O’Hara’. Her talk recounted the untold and forgotten contribution Irish women working as servants in big houses in New York made to the foundation of the war torn new state. Their remittances amounted to millions of pounds and were significant in facilitating the transfer of land to tenant farmers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

RTÉ radio History Show host and author Myles Dungan explored the most difficult theme of the conference – extra judicial executions during the Civil War, especially in Kerry, where the Ballyseedy massacre and reprisals were the bloodiest of that terrible phase of our history.

The final speaker, Rob Delaney, an artificer in the army, talked about the artillery pieces handed over by the departing British army to the newly established regular army in 1922. One of those 18 pound artillery guns fired the first shots on the Four Courts, which started the Civil War in 1922.

The heavy artillery pieces were game changers in the conflict, as the machine-gun outposts of the so called irregulars were no match for such powerful ordinance.

The lectures and conference were supported by Westmeath County Council and the Department of Tourism Culture Arts Gaeltacht Sport and Media.