The UCC Irish Civil War Fatalities Project, supported with funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and accompanied by a wide range of articles by Civil War historians on RTE.ie., seeks to identify all of the conflict-related fatalities in Ireland between the opening shots of the Civil War on 28 June 1922 and the ceasefire and dump arms order on 24 May 1923.
For decades, historians of the Civil War have resorted to estimates when surveying the human cost of Ireland's Civil War. Now, for the first time, UCC historian Dr Andy Bielenberg, assisted by John Dorney, has enumerated the civilian and combatant fatalities, allowing for a wide-ranging, sometimes surprising, analysis of the nature and geographic distribution of the casualties and their impact.
In the Irish Civil War Fatalities Project on RTE.ie/history, Civil War historians explore what the new research reveals about the nature, scale and impact of fatalities in different counties and regions. They also examine the causes of death among combatants and civilians, the chronology of civil war fatalities and the social profiles of those who died on the pro and anti-Treaty sides. In collaboration with UCC's Atlas of the Irish Revolution team, the research findings have been presented in a searchable, interactive Civil War Fatalities map accessible on the UCC website.
The Irish Civil War Fatalities Project is an important legacy project of the Decade of Centenaries. It will be a vital tool for looking objectively at this complex period in Irish history and will help researchers trace both the wider patterns of the conflict and the very real cost to individuals. It provides accessible, accurate data – filling in gaps in our knowledge about the Civil War – while also offering invaluable support for people seeking, in Dr Maurice Manning’s words, 'to navigate their own personal commemorative paths’.
Project Team
Principal Investigator: Dr Andy Bielenberg, UCC School of History
Research Assistant: John Dorney, Independent Historian
Cartographer: Mike Murphy, UCC Department of Geography and Charlie Roche (MobileGIS)
Dissemination & Outreach: Dr Helene O’Keeffe, UCC School of History & Dr John Crowley, UCC Department of Geography
The research findings of the Irish Civil War Fatalities project and the full index of fatalities will also feature in Helene O'Keeffe, John Crowley, Donal O Drisceoil, John Borgonovo and Mike Murphy (eds), Atlas of the Irish Civil War: New Persepectives (Cork University Press, autumn 2024), produced in partnership with the National Library of Ireland.
