Laois Libraries in collaboration with Terry Dunne, Laois Historian-in-Residence, will present two online history talks in March.
The first talk, The Dublin Guard in the Civil War by John Dorney, takes place on Tuesday, 7 at 7pm.
This online event tells the story of Mick Dunne, who was of Portarlington-extraction, and the Dublin Guard – a unit of the National Army with a particularly bloody Civil War record comprised of some of the most militant IRA ‘gunmen’ of the Tan War.
A century ago, on the night of March 6, 1923, Captain Mick Dunne of the National Army’s Dublin Guard was killed along with several comrades in an IRA booby-trap explosion in Kerry.
This is an event which launched a series of retaliatory atrocities
John Dorney is an independent historian and chief editor and writer of the Irish Story website.
He has written for many journals and media outlets including History Ireland, Saothair the Labour History journal, The Revolution Papers, The Irish Independent, Sunday Independent and the Irish News.
His works include Peace After the Final Battle; the Story of the Irish Revolution published by New Island Press in 2014 and The Irish Civil War in Dublin, the fight for the Irish capital 1922-1924 published in 2017 by Merrion Press.
The second talk, Irish South Asian Radical Connections by Catherine Candy and Laurence Cox, takes place on Tuesday, March 21, at 7pm.
Terry Dunne’s Local history articles, available on the Laois Local Studies website, have touched on the impact of Empire on local events and the experiences of Laois people in the colonial machinery including the Leinster Regiment and Indian Civil Service.
This talk looks at the impact of Irish people as agitators against Empire and agents of decolonisation in British controlled South Asia in the early 20th Century.
From Margaret Cousins, leading Irish suffragist, feminist and cultural revivalist, who became a key player in the Indian Freedom movement, to Dublin born Laurence Carroll, later known as Dhammaloka, the first foreign Buddhist monk in Burma and radical opponent of British political and cultural colonisation in that region.
Catherine Candy is Associate Professor of British Imperial History at the University of New Orleans and author of the forthcoming ‘Mystics Against Empire: Margaret and James Cousins, 1873-1956.’
Laurence Cox is Professor at the Sociology Department of Maynooth University and co-author of ‘The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk Who Faced Down the British Empire’ published in 2020 by Oxford University Press.
Both online events are free to attend. To register follow the Eventbrite links on the Laois Local Studies website on https://laoislocalstudies.ie/news/ or go to the Eventbrite page on the links below:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-dublin-guard-in-the-civil-war-tickets-557738680407
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/irish-south-asian-radical-connections-tickets-559306720457
Zoom links will be emailed to those who register on the day of the event.
The events are part of the Laois Libraries Decade of Centenaries programme for 2023.
