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]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)