A new TV series looks at Ireland’s struggle for freedom by focusing on the part played by ordinary people throughout the country, writes Áilin Quinlan.
The played by Michael Collins, left, in Ireland’s fight for freedom has been well documented.
We’re used to viewing the story of Ireland’s struggle for freedom in a ‘top-down’ way through the prism of the lives of leading figures such as Maud Gonne, Michael Collins and Éamon De Valera.
However, a fascinating new TV series on the War of Independence sets out to do the exact opposite.
It tells the story of this war as a movement of untold thousands of ordinary people based in parishes across the country. The War of Independence was fought by the Irish Republican Army against the British between 1919 and 1921 when the fighting stopped while a peace treaty was worked out.
“The War of Independence is not just the story of Collins and De Valera.
“Usually when a story is told, it’s about a big figure like Michael Collins but what we really wanted to get across is that this is basically the story of a movement that was based in parishes and was organic,” explains Dr John Crowley, lecturer at UCC’s Department of Geography, who, along with colleagues Dr Donal O’Driscoll and Dr John Borgonovo of the School of History and cartographer Mike Murphy from the Department of Geography, acted as advisor to the three-part series which begins this week.
“We created a series of maps which show the mobilisation and radicalisation of the Irish population thought the period.
The maps, he explains, also illustrate the street-level devastation caused by incidents during the war, such as the Burning of Cork in December 1920: “The maps can show individual buildings which were burned. You can see the same from the attack on Lisburn — it is that detailed — at street and almost at building level.
“You can literally see where raids took place at street level in particular towns by using these maps.” And this is crucial, because, unlike the Easter Rising of 1916 which was based in Dublin, the War of Independence was also very much fought on a regional level, particularly across rural counties such as Cork, Tipperary, Limerick, and Clare.
“You get to see the destruction caused by the War of Independence. You get snapshots and a birds’ eye view which you wouldn’t normally get, right down to local areas because of the mapping process,” explains UCC’s Director of Cultural Projects Virgina Teehan, who along with Colm Crowley, head of RTÉ Cork, acted as executive producer to the series and spent three years developing it.
Magan boasts an enviable historical pedigree — his great granduncle was The O’Rahilly, one of the Irish Volunteers in the GPO during the Rising and also one of the leaders who died during it.
Magan also takes pride in the fact his grandmother Sighle Humphreys was one of 20,000 Irish women who joined Cumann na mBan in the years afterwards.
“She never let a day go by without talking about the struggle,” he recalls.
So, while the big names certainly feature in the series, what’s important to remember, he emphasises, are the ordinary people who played such a pivotal role.
These included some 100,000 IRA members all over the country — of whom about 3,000 were actively involved in armed attacks, as well as 20,000 members of Cumann na mBan and untold numbers of others.
“The key to winning was the people around the country who were constantly frustrating the British.
“They didn’t serve them in shops or drive their trains. They were digging trenches in roads, cutting through communications systems and acting as spies and informers.
The series also features the events at Kilmichael in Cork, where a convoy of auxiliaries was attacked by Tom Barry and where some auxiliaries were killed in controversial circumstances, and Lisburn, where the IRA assassinated an RIC inspector causing a massive backlash from loyalists.
The series, which is co-produced by Tyrone Productions and Create One in conjunction with UCC and RTÉ, is narrated by movie star Cillian Murphy and features the music of Pól Brennan of Clannad.
The documentary has grown out of the internationally hugely successful book The Atlas of the Irish Revolution, produced by UCC two years ago.
“We decided that, as the 1916 Rising was well covered, that we would focus on the War of Independence,” says Magan.
“Much of the activity happened in Munster, especially in Cork.
It’s believed one of the reasons for this is that many of those rebels were prepared to fight in 1916 but ‘stood down’ following receipt of a countermanding order during that period.
However, many also felt a sense of shame for not fighting, Magan explains, and remained always at the ready.
The story comes from the perspective of participants and witnesses on both sides, he adds: “Many Catholics had joined the RIC and they took the brunt of the first stage of the war.
“So effective was the IRA campaign against their own people that the RIC retreated from 400 of the 700 barracks around the country and their wives and children were boycotted and ostracised.
“It was a brutal and dirty war and we would be wrong to over-glamorise it; it was a necessary war but it was brutal. There were atrocities committed by both sides.
“It is fascinating because you’re looking at the most powerful empire in the world with the strong army in the world and an ill-armed rebel army managed to wear down the British and even force them to put up their hands and say they’d had enough.
Without that generation which included luminaries of the likes of pointing Terence McSwiney, Maud Gonne, Countess Markievicz and The O’Rahilly, Magan observes, neither the Easter Rising nor the War of Independence would have happened.
“This radical generation triggered it, “ he says, “They were dreamers who were willing to stand and demand that society change because society was very conservative at that time.
It’s been a hugely exciting project, says Teehan who has just moved from her current post in the President’s Office at UCC to take up the job of CEO at the National Heritage Council.
The series successfully harnesses a huge public interest in Irish history while at the same time presenting research and scholarship in an accessible way to a very wide audience, she says.
“Traditionally history has been presented in books and when academics carry out research they normally produce a book.
- The first episode of the series will be broadcast at 9.30pm on RTÉ 1 Monday February 4.