The Irish Story Top Ten of 2021

Thanks to all of our writers contributors guest and readers of the past year. Below is a list of our top ten most read articles of 2021.

This year saw the centenary of the Truce of July 1921 and the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed on December 6 1921, as well as of the effective birth of Northern Ireland and partition.

Top Ten Articles

1. Ireland and the Anglo-Zulu war 1879, by John Dorney
2. The Wiggan’s Patch massacre Pennsylvania 1875, by John Joe McGinley
3. ‘They were determined to obtain a sacrifice’ The first Irish state executions of IRA members since the Civil War, 1940, by Gerard Shannon.
4. ‘A Fiend in Human shape’: The life and crimes of Thomas Huckerby, by Sean Gannon
5. The Irishmen who fought with Custer, by John Joe McGinely
6. ‘The Blood of Irish Rebels Flowed in his Veins’, Che Guevara and the Irish, by Barry Sheppard
7. From the Shipyards to the Poitin Still, Social Class and the IRA’s 3rd Northern Division, by Kieran Glennon
8. The Scramogue ambush 1921, By Thomas Tormey
9. Ambushes in the War of Independence, Myth and Reality, by John Dorney
10. An Unnecessary number of Graves? The Road to the Truce of 1921, By John Dorney

Many other great articles just missed the top ten most read, so scroll through the months for more.

Top Ten Podcasts

In association with the Irish History Show.

1. Irish Revolutionary Women with Liz Gillis and Mary McAuliffe
2. Commemoration and its Discontents with Laura McAtackney and Brian Hanley
3. James Hoban – Irish architect of the White House, with Stuart McLauren
4.  Commemorating 1921 in Ireland, 100 years on, with Cathal Brennan and John Dorney
5. The Arms Crisis of 1970 with Brian Hanley
6. Irish Army Deserters in WWII with Cian Harte
7. Ian Paisley with Ed Molony
8. Anne Chambers on Peter Howe Browne, Lord Sligo: ‘the Great Leviathan’
9. The Partition of Ireland with Cormac Moore
10. Sean Russell, the IRA and Nazi Germany with Gerard Shannon

Top book reviews

1. One Man’s Terrorist: a Political History of the IRA by Dan Finn, reviewed by Brian Hanley
2. A Difficult Birth: The Early Years of Northern Ireland 1920-25 by Alan Parkinson, reviewed by Kieran Glennon
3. Without a Dog’s Chance, The nationalists of Northern Ireland and the Boundary Commission 1920-25 by James Cousins, reviewed by John Dorney
4. Recovering an Irish Voice from the American Frontier: The Prose Writings of Eoin Ua Cathail, edited by Pádraig Fhia Ó Mathúna, reviewed y Aidan Beatty.
5. Combatants and Civilians in Revolutionary Ireland 1918-1923 by Thomas Earls Fitzgerald, reviewed by John Dorney
6. Author response: Thomas Earls Fitzgerald on Combatants and Civilians in Revolutionary Ireland
7. Antrim: in the Irish Revolution, by Brian Feeney, reviewed by Kieran Glennon
8. The Time of the Tans: an oral history of the War of Independence in County Clare, by Tomás Mac Conmara, reviewed by Aaron Ó Maonaigh
9. Ballymacandy the story of a Kerry Ambush, by Owen O’Shea, reviewed by Thomas Earls Earls Fitzgerald.
10. The Enigma of Arthur Griffith, by Colm Kenny, reviewed by Eoin O’Driscoll

See also 2020 list here.

So that’s it for 2021. Happy New Year to all!