The Year of Disappearances Political Killings in Cork 19211922 Gerard Murphy Books
Download As PDF : The Year of Disappearances Political Killings in Cork 19211922 Gerard Murphy Books
Murphy names the names his scope is comprehensive and covers reprisals and assassinations in both city and county Disappearances, executions, graves and departures are listed by Murphy in compelling statistics.-The Irish Times. ""Every spy who was shot in Cork was buried so that nothing was known about them. They just disappeared."" These are the words of an IRA commander recalling the War of Independence in Cork city. The Year of Disappearance s examines this claim and others like it. It uncovers a web of suspicion and paranoia that led to scores of men and boys being abducted from their homes before being executed as ""enemies of the Republic"" and their bodies buried. While some of this took place during the War of Independence, most of it happened the following year, during the so-called ""Cork Republic"". The net result was to change the demographic of the south-eastern corner of the city for ever, with hundreds of families fleeing and up to fifty individuals buried in unmarked graves in surrounding areas. Using a wide range of previously untapped sources, Murphy shines new light on one of the darker episodes of twentieth-century Irish history. The Year of Disappearances is a ground-breaking book that deepens our knowledge and understanding of the War of Independence. It subverts many myths, and examines realities long hidden.
The Year of Disappearances Political Killings in Cork 19211922 Gerard Murphy Books
A very troubled period in Irish history which makes it difficult to rationalize from a distance how it could happen,brutality normally follows a grave injustice inflicted by any super power "an eye for an eye" is the motivation to get even.Product details
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The Year of Disappearances Political Killings in Cork 19211922 Gerard Murphy Books Reviews
When Voltaire said "History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions" he surely had this book in mind. A vague rumour in one chapter is 'supported' by a strained hypothesis in the next and then later presented to the reader as documented fact. Some of the most glaring examples (see reviews below) would be comical were the subject matter not so serious. It manages to be both a disservice to alleged perpetrators and to any victims that may (or may not) have been disappeared.
Impenetrable & poorly referenced, its also a poor show for Gill & McMillan's history catalogue that otherwise includes the likes of Jonathan Bardon, Tom Garvin etc.
Potential purchasers might usefully read reviews at theirishstory.com, spinwatch and livinghistory
A thoroughly engaging and incredibly well detailed account of one of the most difficult and least understood periods of Irish history. Murphy, using Cork as a microcosm for national events, brings Cork, characters and the atmosphere of the time to life creating a real page turner. This is a well timed volume and significantly adds to to the national conversation about this period - the author does not hold back in his narrative which is genuinely refreshing. Highly recommended.
I have just finished reading this book and I disagree profoundly with the previous reviewer. Impenetrable? A vague rumour? A strained hypotheses? I think not. The book is clearly written, as even its harshest critics have conceded. The evidence for the main points in the book is very strong. Much of it is incontrovertible. And far from being `poorly referenced', it is extraordinarily well referenced. I wonder what parts of the book Patrick Twomey finds most objectionable. Is it the part about the Cork IRA during the War of Independence leaking information from near the top while making scapegoats of Protestants? Or is it the bit about hanging 15-year-olds to extract dubious information about alleged `spy rings'. Or maybe it is the part about holding prisoners underground in a rural graveyard - which is now being turned into a virtual theme park - before executing and burying over 30 of them in a nearby bog. Or maybe it is just that the author shows that up to 70 Protestants were shot by the Cork IRA during those years, naming many of them. People like Patrick Twomey hate Murphy's book like they hate the work of Peter Hart before him, because it tells truths that some in Ireland don't want to hear. His review, if it could be so described, is just part of the online firewall being built against this book since it came out. Patrick Twomey can quote from Voltaire but he cannot spell Gill and Macmillan, which just goes to show how much of the book he has actually read. In a word nauseating.
In The Year of Disappearances Gerard Murphy acknowledges his debt to the late Peter Hart who pioneered the republican sectarianism argument in his highly influential The IRA and its Enemies violence and community in Cork, 1916-1923 (OUP, 1998). Subsequent criticism established that Hart invented evidence and misreported archival material in order to establish his case. Inexplicably, with few exceptions, Irish historians failed to respond to the serious problems raised.[10] Murphy wrote that Hart’s 1998 book ‘is worth the cover price for the sources alone’ and that ‘Hart’s sources’ were his ‘starting point’. (p. 22) [11]
Hart’s argument had strong media supporters. Kevin Myers in the Irish Times and Eoghan Harris in the Sunday Times and Sunday Independent, vigorously promoted his research, Myers from 1990 and Harris from 1998. These efforts reflected their opposition to the Northern Ireland peace process up to and after the 1994 IRA ceasefire. Journalist propagandists like Harris and Myers promoted and amplified research with which they politically agreed, while dismissing counter arguments.[12] The impact of their efforts should not be casually dismissed. Thousands of readers without access to a different argument were potentially conditioned to accept a tendentious view of Irish history.
This is the context within which Gerard Murphy’s book has been written and within which, inevitably, it will be interpreted. However, all interpretation, irrespective of origin, should bow before evidence. Without identifiable evidence within historical texts, discussion and debate becomes merely contested rhetoric. It is here, as I shall demonstrate, that Murphy’s book fails.
Murphy acknowledges that his 498 pages and 58 chapters contain ‘at best a theory or, rather a series of interrelated theories’ (p. XI). Numerous problems arise, however, from ill-considered suppositions and speculations. The absence of an adequate scholarly apparatus gives rise to doubts over the work’s merits. It also creates severe difficulties in establishing how Murphy reached his conclusions. Unfortunately, though referenced in notes, the book contains no list of primary sources. A thin bibliography of published work is provided. However, un-paginated citation of published material is of no help.[13] On occasion also Murphy cites unnamed individuals he encountered on his quest, for example ‘This book was almost finished when I chanced upon an elderly Cork city man’ (p. 301); ‘A number of years ago a friend of mine was driving along one Sunday morning listening to the car radio…’ (p. 245) The impression of a carelessly prepared work rushed into print (for the Christmas market?) is evident. Take page 86 for instance. There, in the second of two mentions, it is reported that there was ‘no branch of the UDA in Cork’. Presumably, instead of this unexplained acronym, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF, founded in 1912) was intended, rather than the Ulster Defence Association (UDA, which emerged in the latter part of 1971).[14] Since ‘The Year of Disappearances’ is advertised as a referenced work of history it therefore lacks prima facie credibility.[15] In most reputable universities such work would not be admissible as research.
Murphy is a brave man to have written this book. His family has its roots in the physical force tradition of Irish republicanism and I'm sure that the process of writing and publishing this book cost him at various levels. It is a painfully honest book and generally very well documented. If you want to know the misery of Cork during this period this book is required reading.
A very troubled period in Irish history which makes it difficult to rationalize from a distance how it could happen,brutality normally follows a grave injustice inflicted by any super power "an eye for an eye" is the motivation to get even.
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