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Department of History

Dr Brian Hanley

Dr Brian Hanley

Assistant Professor in the History of Northern Ireland

The bulk of my research has been focused on Irish republicanism and radicalism, particularly on the politics and activity of the Irish Republican Army. My most recent work (which is continuing) has been about the impact of the conflict in Northern Ireland on politics and society in the Republic. My current research examines the global impact of the Irish revolution (1916-23) and my next book, to be published during 2022, examines this area. This builds on work I have done on Irish republicanism among the diaspora, particularly in Irish America. I have also written a forthcoming short book on crime during the revolutionary period. I am keen to explore intersections of class, race and gender in my work.

Publications

Books:

  • The impact of the Troubles on the Republic of Ireland, 1968-79: boiling volcano? (Manchester University Press, 2018). (Paperback, 2019).
  • A Documentary History of the IRA, 1916-2005 (Dublin, Gill and MacMillan, 2010). (Paperback, 2015).
  • The Lost Revolution: the story of the Official IRA and the Workers Party. (With Scott Millar) (Penguin Ireland, 2009) (Paperback, 2010).
  • A Guide to Irish Military Heritage (Four Courts Press, 2004).
  • The IRA, 1926-1936 (Four Courts Press, 2002).

Journal Articles:

  • 'The Irish and the Jews have a good deal in common': Irish republicanism, anti-Semitism and the post-war world' in Irish Historical Studies, (May, 2020).
  • 'We mourn our brothers': Workers respond to Bloody Sunday and the conflict in Northern Ireland, 1968-72' in Saothar 42 (April, 2017).
  • ‘I Ran Away’ The IRA and 1969: the evolution of a myth’ in Irish Historical Studies, (November, 2013).
  • ‘Attitudes to the IRA in the Irish Republic since 1969’ in Irish Historical Studies (May, 2013).
  • ‘The needs of the people: the IRA considers its future 1967-68’ in Saothar 38, (2013).
  • ‘Irish Republicans in inter-war New York’ in the Irish Journal of American Studies 1 (2009).
  • Document Study: ‘Agitate, educate, organise’: the IRA’s An t-Oglach of the 1960s’ in Saothar, 32 (2008).
  • ‘The Politics of NORAID’ in Irish Political Studies, 19 (2004).
  • ‘Moss Twomey, the IRA and radicalism 1931-33-a reassessment’ in Saothar, 26 (2001).

Other Journals

  • "Very Dangerous Places": IRA gunrunning and the post-war underworld' in History Ireland The Irish Revolution 1919-21: a Global History (Dublin, 2019).
  • 'Anatomy of an electoral landslide' in History Ireland '1916-18: Changed Utterly', (Dublin, 2017).
  • 'Who fears to speak?' Thoughts on the Easter Rising and its legacy' in Decies, Journal of the Waterford Archaeological & Historical Society, 72, 2016.
  • 'Between King and Kaiser' in Jacobin 21, (Spring 2016).
  • 'Look back in anger: Ireland and the First World War' in the Journal of the Old Drogheda Society, (2014).
  • ‘The 1970 Springboks tour and local politics in Limerick’ in The Old Limerick Journal, (2009).
  • ‘No English enemy ever stooped so low:’ Mike Quill, de Valera’s visit to the German Legation and Irish American attitudes to neutrality’ in Radharc (2008).
  • ‘The Irish World, FDR and the Great Depression’ in New York Irish History, 17 (2004).
  • “Just a battalion of armed Catholics”? The IRA in Northern Ireland in the 1930s’ in Irish History: a Research Yearbook 1 (2002).
  • ‘The strange story of Stephen Lally-Connaught Ranger’s Mutineer’ in The Irish Sword, 89 (2001).
  • ‘Change and continuity: republican thought since 1922’ in The Republic, 2 (2001).
  • ‘The Volunteer Reserve and the IRA’ in The Irish Sword, 83 (1998).

Book Chapters:

  • 'A red to the rats' but never a 'rat to the reds'? Mike Quill, communism and Irish New York' in F. Devine & P. Smylie (Eds) Irish Communist Lives (Umiskin Press, 2020).
  • 'The people of no property? republicanism and socialism in twentieth century Ireland' in S. Byers & F. Devine (Eds) William Walker 1870-1918 Centenary Essays (Umiskin Press, 2018)
  • 'Merely Tuppence-Half Penny Looking Down on Tuppence?' Class, the Second Dáil and Irish Republicanism' in M. Ó Fathartaigh & L. Weeks (Eds) The Treaty: Debating and Establishing Irish Independence (Irish Academic Press, 2018).
  • 'Tough, violent and virtually ungovernable': Northern nationalists in the Irish Republic, 1969-75' in T.P. Burgess (Ed) The Contested Identities of Ulster Catholics (Palgrave macmillan, 2018).
  • 'Legion of the Rearguard: the IRA after the Revolution'; 'Civil War continued? The IRA versus the Blueshirts' & 'The IRA in Northern Ireland' in J. Crowley, D. O Drisceoil, J. Borgonovo, M. Murphy., (Eds) The Atlas of the Irish Revolution (Cork, 2017).
  • 'The layers of an onion': reflections on class, 1913 and the memory of the Irish Revolution' in C. McNamara & P. Yeates., (Eds) The 1913 Lockout (Dublin, 2017).
  • 'Liam Mellows and the Irish Revolution' in Farming and Country Life, 1916 (Teagasc, Carlow, 2016).
  • 'Tomás Mac Giolla' in J. Cunningham & E. O'Connor, (Eds) Studies in Irish Radical Leadership: Lives on the Left (Manchester University Press, 2016).
  • ‘Frank Aiken and the IRA, 1923-1933’ in B. Evans & S. Kelly (Eds) Frank Aiken: Nationalist and Internationalist (Irish Academic Press, 2014).
  • ‘Charley Bourne, Jack Ford and the Green Fields of France’ in J. Horne and E. Madigan, (Eds) Towards Commemoration: Ireland in War and Revolution 1912-1923 (Dublin, 2013).
  • ‘Terror in Twentieth Century Ireland’ in D. Fitzpatrick (ed) Terror in Ireland, 1916-1923 (Dublin, 2012).
  • ‘Irish Republican attitudes to sport since 1921’ in D. McAnallan, R. Hassan and R. Hegarty, (ed) The Evolution of the GAA (Belfast, 2009).
  • ‘The IRA and trade unionism, 1922-1972’ in F. Devine, F. Lane & N. Puirseil (eds)., Essays in Irish Labour History (Dublin, 2008).
  • ‘The Volunteer Reserve and the IRA’ in H. Murtagh, (Ed) Warfare in Ireland, 1800-2000 (Dublin, 2005).
  • ‘James Connolly and the Workers Republic’ in M. Jones (Ed) The Republic, (Dublin, 2005).
  • ‘The Rhetoric of Republican Legitimacy’ in F. McGarry (Ed) Republicanism in Modern Ireland (UCD Press, 2003).

Other Publications

I write regularly for History Ireland magazine and have written for the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, Irish Examiner and the Revolution Papers.
I have contributed nine entries to the Dictionary of Irish Biography. I have authored a number of short pamphlets, including Civil Rights internationally and the crisis of the 1960s (Belfast, 2019), The Finest Men Alive: Documents of imprisonment and protest (UCD, 2017), 'None of the Literary Type': Liam Mellows and the Galway Rising (Teagasc, Carlow, 2016) and Our Rising: Cabra and Phibsborough in Easter 1916 (Dublin, 2015).

Contact Details

Department of History
Trinity College
Dublin 2
HANLEYBR