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West Cork History Festival Film Night
Death as the ultimate boundary
The Taoiseach: A Century of Political Leadership
Boundaries in 19th century Central Asia
Glenbarrahane & the founding of Castletownshend
The Centenary of the 1926 Census
2026 Festival Programme
The Bad Bridget project comes to West Cork …
The Irish Boundary Commission 101 years on
Speakers for our 2026 Festival revealed
A very Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2026!
Historical reads, watches & listens for autumn
Festival on RTE History Show
Festival speaker shortlisted for Wolfson History Prize
Conor Gearty 1957-2025
2025 Festival
Ireland & Neutrality event at RIA in Dublin
Some spring historical reads, watches & listens
A very Happy New Year from all of us at the West Cork History Festival
A selection of interesting historical reads including ancient figs, Irish foxes, PG Wodehouse and a Troubles era television
Festival speaker Thomas Keneally on RTE’s History Show
Two months on…
2024 West Cork History Festival
Important programme update
We’re in the Southern Star!
Festival featured in the Irish Times today
Pop-up book shops at this year’s Festival
Talk on the Irish Diaspora at Skibbereen Library, Friday 9 August 11am
Festival features in the Irish Times this week… and a round up of historical reads & listens
The Digital Repository of Ireland
The West Cork History Festival explores Irish-Australian history in Dublin
The Irish in Australia event at the Australian Embassy in Dublin, 26 June
2024 Speakers
Guest blog: Resting Place – The Legacies of Civil War by Ellen McWilliams
Civil War fatalities & an Irish family in the American Civil War
Robert Harris
A very Happy St Patrick’s Day
An Gaodhal, International Women’s Day and much else
Nurses, bog bodies, Lady Killers and the English Market
John Bruton
A very Happy Christmas from the West Cork History Festival
Pirates, the politics of land and death in Irish prehistory… and Christmas
2024 Festival Programme
Day Three of the Festival
Day Two of the Festival
A great start to our 2023 Festival
One more blog post before the 2023 Festival
It’s been a while….
2023 Speakers & Performers
Our 2023 Programme Revealed…
West Cork History Festival 2023
The Home Babies, 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement & Dancing at Lughnasa
The American Civil War, 70 women who shaped Ireland (only 70?) & the Adrian Flowers Archive
Tenerife, Clonakilty & medieval Norwich
Exhibitions both online & in real life
The O’Conor Don & the ‘Irish Giant’ Charles Byrne
A very Happy Christmas & best wishes for 2023
Stamps, ports and Scythian gold
1798, the Famine & 1922
‘Thus she shall go to the stars…’
A West Cork botanist, a Dublin psychiatric hospital, mythical creatures of Cashel & the Irish founder of the SAS
Decade of Centenaries but more too – Irish Georgian interiors & a rebellion in Jamaica
Our Festival Concert is going on tour!
Festival Concert: ‘Thus She Shall Go To The Stars’
Bob Geldof for WCHF 2022
Panel Discussion: The Bandon Valley Killings
Professor Brian Walker: The Bandon Valley Massacre
Dr Andy Bielenberg: ‘100 years on; The Dunmanway Massacre Revisited’
Don Wood: 1922 and the Protestant Community in West Cork
Dr Gemma Clark: “Sectarianism” as an Interpretative Framework
Black ’47 Panel Discussion
John Kelly: Artistic Response to An Gorta Mór
Dr Charles Read – Famine and the Financial Crisis of 1847
Professor Melissa Fegan: Literature and the Famine
Professor Breandán Mac Suibhne: Black ’47 in Skibbereen
An Taoiseach Micheál Martin Introduces the West Cork History Festival 2022
West Cork, Dublin & Offaly histories
Press coverage for our 2022 Festival
2022 Festival Images
Something for after the Festival…
Festival back catalogue…
Our 2022 speakers
The Book of St Albans, the Tailteann Games, the Civil War & a fantastic resource on the Diaspora
Women’s experiences in the revolutionary period & beyond
Panel Discussion: Reflecting on the challenges which lie ahead in the Decade of Centenaries.
Panel Discussion: Reflecting on the triangular relationship between Ireland, Britain & Continental Europe.
Brian Walker: ‘Southern Protestant Voices during the War of Independence and Civil War’
Brendan Simms: ‘From back door to back stop. Britain, Ireland and Europe in historical perspective’.
Eunan O’Halpin – ‘Policing and politics: the RIC and the War of Independence, 1919-21’
Miriam O’Donovan: ‘James Goodman’s Song Manuscript of 1857 in its Context’
Thomas O’Connor: ‘Strangers to Citizens: the Irish in Europe before the French Revolution’
Gerald O’Brien in Conversation with William Casey: ‘Daniel O’Connell and the Monster Repeal Meeting, Skibbereen, June 1843’
Orla Murphy: ‘The Life and Work of Seamus Murphy’
Mary Murphy: ‘Europe and the British-Irish Relationship: Past, Present and Future’
Dan Mulhall: Declaring Independence – America 1776, Ireland 1919
Sylvie Kleinman – ‘Framing the Irish Republic 1796-2016’ A revisit of Tone’s exile in France for the Decade of Commemorations
Liam Kennedy: ‘The IRA and Irish Protestants, 1919-23 and 1969-98’
John Horne: ‘At the Crossroads: Ireland, Britain and the International Context, 1919-1923’
Jim Herlihy: The Royal Irish Constabulary ‘A Forgotten Force – The Case for a Memorial.’
Daisy Goodwin – Writing Victoria
Ruth Dudley Edwards – Reflecting on Attitudes in Southern Ireland to Northern Ireland
Ida Milne and Ian d’Alton – ‘Protestant and Irish: Opening a different sort of conversation?’
Stephen Collins – ‘Why the State Should Commemorate the RIC/DMP – A Personal Perspective’
John Dorney: ‘Florence McCarthy and his Spanish Connections’
Clare Connolly: Subject Waves
Brian Coghlan: ‘An exploration of the life of Percy Ludgate’
John Bruton: In Conversation with Carl Dinnen
Guy Warner: Three First World War Airmen with Cork Connection
Louise Ryan: The Suffrage Movement and the Irish Citizen Newspaper
Michael Robinson: Disabled Great War Veterans during the Irish Revolution
Niamh O’Sullivan: Art & the Great Hunger
Eunan O’Halpin: A Catalogue of Errors – the British Government and Ireland in 1918
Peter Murray: The Victorian Painter George Victor du Noyer
Ida Milne – Stacking the Coffins, the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic and Irish Society
Mary McGilicuddy: Women in the Fishing Industry in South West Ireland in the Late 18th & Early 19th Centuries
Niamh MacNally: Artist Margaret Clarke
Connie Kelleher: The 1627 Wreck of the Spanish Treasure Galleon Santa Ana Maria
Lar Joye – Weapons of the War of Independence
Alvin Jackson – Edward Carson and John Redmond
Irons Jeremy: Reading of Irish First World War and Revolutionary Era Poetry
Cal Hyland: The Situation of Protestants in West Cork
Brian Hughes: Gossip, Rumour & Propaganda – Deceptions and Perceptions of Irish
Colum Hourihane: Gothic Art in Ireland
John Horne – The War to End All Wars, International Perspectives 1918-23
Susan Flavin: Food, Drink & Society in 16th Century Ireland
Finola Finlay – From Skibbereen to the Moon, Agnes Clerke and 19th Century Astronomy
David Edwards: Gaelic Politics in the Latter Middle Ages
Linda Connolly: The Violence Suffered by Women During the Irish Revolution
Kieran Connolly – The Life of Sam Maguire
Katie Childs: The Imperial War Museum, Remembering Women’s Roles in WW1
William Casey – Cillíní in West Cork
Andy Bielenberg: Disappearances in County Cork 1920-22 and the Case of Mrs Lindsay
Panel Discussion: The War of Independence
Panel Discussion – WW1 and Ireland: Participation
Panel Discussion – WW1 and Ireland: Commemoration
Kevin Vickers: Irish Born Canadian Soldiers in the First World War
William Sheehan – Lessons in Counter-insurgency from Ireland
Dominic Selwood: The Knights Templar and Ireland
Eunan O’Halpin: Commemoration 1919-23
Dan Mulhall: War and Peace: Two Irish Writers in 1917
Patrick Little: The Second Earl of Cork and his Children
Connie Kelleher: Piracy off the West Cork Coast
Lar Joye: Duelling in Ireland
Roy Foster – Antagonism and Conflict in Irish History
David Fitzpatrick: Protestant Depopulation and the Irish Revolution
Marianne Elliott: Sectarianism in Ireland
Michael Dobbs: Life, Lust and Liquor: How House of Cards Wrote Itself
Pat Crowley: The O’Donovan Family of Muintervara, Durrus
William Casey: Early Fenianism in Skibbereen
Richard Butler: The Architecture of Bishop Lucey’s Churches
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West Cork History Festival Film Night

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Death as the ultimate boundary

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The Taoiseach: A Century of Political Leadership

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