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20 August 1998 Edition

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New in print: The long history of war in Ireland

A Military History of Ireland
edited by Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery
Published by Cambridge University Press
Price £17.95pb/£45hb (stg)

A fascination with stage battles, battle-dress and the weapons of war occupied much of my childhood. I was one of those children who helped Airfix and the like return huge profits annually in my quest to re-enact historic battles such as The Battle of Waterloo. In my version the Prussians didn't arrive to relieve the English but to help annihilate them; the `Indians' rarely lost a brave as they prevented the spread of the White man across the Americas; and the Norman castles of England, Scotland and Ireland were overrun regularly by native hordes.

In later years I grew away from the inch-high plastic figures, but my interest in battles, mainly Irish, did not wane. I read extensively of the engagements of the Tan War, 1798, the Munster Rebellion and the other Elizabethan and later Cromwellian wars in Ireland. Battles in which the Irish or Irish regiments were involved also attracted my attention, the American Civil War, the Fenian expeditions in North America, the revolts of the Irish in the early Australian colony, the role of the Irish at Fontenoy and more.

My involvement in the Republican Movement did nothing to lessen my interest despite some calling it romanticism or even militarism on my part. It in fact encouraged me to delve deeper into the study of the warfare and strategies adopted over the centuries by people's armies, especially the guerrilla tactics of the Irish.

A number of years ago I was given as a present Irish Battles: A military history of Ireland by GA Hayes-McCoy (Appletree Press 1989) which was a very full and lively account of a number of battles from Irish history, though only one from 1798 (that gap has been filled by Art Kavanagh's Battles of 1798 series, Irish Family Names publishers, Bunclody, County Wexford). But what was lacking from that valuable tome was a fuller overview of the periods discussed, the evolution of military tactics and weaponry and the effects of external influences and innovations on these. In reading Bartlett and Jeffery's book that gap has been plugged somewhat, though some work still needs to be done, and the Irish Sword and History Ireland continue that work.

The contributions in the Military History are thought-provoking, though I would find fault with Eunan O'Halpin's premise in ``The army in independent Ireland'' that an ``IRB cabal disobeyed the orders of the Irish Volunteers Chief of Staff''. As members of a separate organisation they were not answerable to him. Nor was Soloheadbeg in 1919 ``a local initiative taken without the knowledge or sanction of the political or military leaders of the separatist movement''. There was a general directive since early 1917 to raid for arms and munitions nationwide.

In E M Spiers' article ``Army organisation and society in the 19th Century'' he attempts to prove that regiments infiltrated by Fenians were not sent overseas to prevent their services being called on by John Devoy, but he quotes 1867 material, not the 1866 material which is when Devoy and others state that the crackdown against the Fenian regiments occurred.

David Fitzpatrick's contribution ``Militarism in Ireland, 1900-1922'' read in conjunction with recent works by Peter Hart (The IRA & its enemies, violence and community in Cork, 1916-1923, Oxford 1998), Joost Augusteijn (From Public Defiance to Guerrilla Warfare, Irish Academic Press 1996) and Elizabeth Muenger (The British Military Dilemma in Ireland: Occupation politics 1886-1914, Lawrence 1991) would add to everybody's understanding of the reasons behind many of the military strategies implemented during the revolutionary period of the 1920s.

Though packed with fascinating details and statistics there are major gaps and too many of the articles are written from the British army establishment standpoint with the alternative meriting often only a reference. The Civil War is missed totally, the Nine Years War of O'Neill and the other Irish chieftains gets scant coverage, while the military structures and strategies of the republican organisations in the 19th Century are not dealt with at all. A Military History of Ireland, part II or a Republican Military History should be in the offing to continue the work Bartlett and Jeffery have begun.

By Aengus O Snodaigh

An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland