Where were the Irish regiments of the British Army in 1919‒21? This episode goes from Cairo and Constantinople to Iraq and India and puts the Irish revolution into its global context through some of the scribblings of Sir Henry Wilson - the Longford man who was Chief of the Imperial General Staff – the highest military position in the British Empire.

From January 1919 onwards the Empire was beset by strikes, riots and protests and so the agenda shifted from the expansion of the Empire to its defence — even to the defence of London. In 1919-21 the Dirty Shirts – the Royal Munster Fusiliers - were in Cairo, and the Dubs – the Royal Dublin Fusiliers - were in Constantinople. Other Irish units were in Iran, Iraq, and India.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode looks at the West of Ireland agrarian movement of the spring and early summer of 1920. That year saw a widespread popular mobilisation known as the cattle drives - crowds assembling to drive cattle and sheep off disputed land.

This movement was a major factor underpinning the land reform policies of the new Irish Free State - policies which lead to almost 20% of farmland being re-distributed. The episode takes in the story of the movement itself, as well as the social structure which it arose in reaction to.

Also examined is the response of the republican leadership, who put considerable effort into putting an end to the agrarian movement.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is about the farm labour strike in Meath and Kildare in July and August 1919. Farm workers were by far the largest single group in the transport union during the revolutionary years.

The episode will look at the forming of small local unions in 1917 and 1918 as well as the epic clash in 1919. The strike that year saw robust picketing by farm workers, sympathetic action by drovers and dockers, and even rail sabotage by the IRA.

The Transport Union’s expansion into rural Ireland laid the foundation for the largest single strike in Irish history – the general strike in support of hunger-striking political prisoners in Mountjoy Gaol in April 1920.

The podcast also deals with the socio-economic background to the dispute – especially the food supply measures of the 1914 to 1918 war.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The name Peelers and Sheep comes from an incident in the 1919 Meath and Kildare farm labour strike.

It took eleven policemen, nicknamed peelers, led by a sergeant and a head constable, with fixed bayonets, just to deliver thirteen sheep to Drumree railway station. In the end, as you’ll discover when listening to our first episode, the bayonets of the Royal Irish Constabulary were of no avail, the sheep were boycotted in Dublin and returned on the very next train.

This is the land, but this is not a land of timeless tradition, this is the hothouse where the modern world is made.

This is a rebel story. This is a story of people who are not the big names of Irish history. This is not the history you learned in school.

This is history from below.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.