Show Notes
The Anglo-Irish Treaty sparked turmoil within the IRA. Some accepted it and joined the ranks of the Provisional Government’s new ‘National Army’; some remained neutral; the majority opposed it, but with the added twist that on the eve of the Civil War there were two anti-Treaty factions of the IRA, not one. Two Army Conventions, on 26 March and 18 June 1922, failed to resolve these differences. To make sense of these complexities, join History Ireland editor Tommy Graham in discussion with Síobhra Aiken, John Borgonovo, John Dorney and Brian Hanley.
The Hedge School series of podcasts is produced by History Ireland and the Wordwell Group. For more information or to subscribe, visit historyireland.com
This podcast is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries 2012-2023 Initiative.
Image: Anti-Treaty IRA on Dublin’s Grafton Street in spring 1922. (Mercier Archive)
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A ‘unique relationship’?—Ireland and the USA 1920–present (Recorded live on Fri 28 Aug ’26 @ the Electric Picnic) While the UK claims to have a ‘special relationship’ with the USA, we claim a ‘unique relationship’, exemplified by the now-traditional bowl of shamrock presentation in the White House each St Patrick’s Day. But the relationship hasn’t always been cordial: Dev failed to get recognition of the Irish Republic from the US government in 1920; the biggest threat to our neutrality during the Emergency came not from the Nazis or the British but from the USA; and today by far the biggest source of toxic far-right misinformation and disinformation is the USA.
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