50-year-old tapes of interviews with Civil War veterans are made public – The Irish Times

Fifty years ago Harlan Strauss was a student at the University of Oregon on the West Coast of the United States. He had a “grand idea” to write a dissertation on the types of people who make revolutionaries.

He soon realized that he needed to speak to an actual living revolutionary. But where? He was neither fluent in Spanish to go to Cuba nor Russian to go to the Soviet Union. Ireland was the only English-speaking country to revolutionize living memory.

Strauss says he was “less than 1% Irish”, was neither Catholic nor Protestant, and knew little about Ireland at first.But he turned being an outsider into an advantage

His job was to “ask people not what they did, but why they did it.” Being original allowed him to ask questions that others would shy away from. Was the Civil War worth it? do you regret what you did? What is it like to be on a hunger strike?

The result was 30 hours of never-before-heard audio recordings of 32 prominent figures in Irish life. The list of interviewees included Frank Aiken, Dan Breen, Robert Burton, Christopher Brady, the printer of the Easter Rising Proclamation, Peder O’Donnell, Maile Commerford, John A Costello, Ernest Bryce, and Sean Dowling.

[ Stories of the Revolution: Dan Breen’s battle with bureaucracy ]

Part of the material was eventually published as “The Revolutionary-making process: A social-psychological study of the Leadership of the English, American, Russian and Irish Revolutions.

The tape is now deposited in the National Folk Collection of Ireland and will be of great interest to students of the Irish Revolution.

“When the doors opened to most people, I quickly realized that I was the first to want to know their story,” recalls Strauss.

“They didn’t share that information with their families, but I was an outsider. I was open minded and a young student. In fact, I was pretty naive about everything. Most of them were open-minded.” and could tape from 30 minutes to 3 hours.”

The public will get their first chance to hear excerpts from The Silent Civil War tapes, which will air in two episodes beginning Wednesday. Explore the legacy of the Civil War and its impact on families across generations.

Strauss asked Sean Dowling, director of the IRA organization during the Civil War, if the violence was justified. “Violence alone has never accomplished anything. Foreign invaders have never been driven out of the country,” replied Dowling.

“Looking back now, do you think the Civil War could have been avoided?” Strauss asked.

“Yes, it was disastrous. I think it was right.”

Michael Hilliard was also anti-treaty and was arrested during the Civil War. He went on a hunger strike that lasted 35 days, as many Republicans did during that period. He gave an extraordinary account of the hunger striker mentality.

“It’s a tremendous experience. Your mind becomes crystal clear and you [are] About 21 days later, in a kind of ecstasy. You have day dreams and night dreams, you have very beautiful dreams. I can’t explain it well, but I can remember what happened to me from the very early days of my life, as if I was watching a movie,” Hilliard said.

Sean McBride told Strauss about how he felt that neither side was doing enough to avoid the Civil War or stop it as soon as it started.

His granddaughter, Isolt White, was executed for his role in the Easter Rising, despite the fact that Sean’s father, great-grandfather Major John McBride, was likely a violent drunkard. He told a documentary about how he was worshiped as a martyr after being killed.

Another Strauss interviewee was Aiken, the former IRA Chief of Staff, due to the “disarm” order that ended the civil war in May 1923. Aiken, who had long served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Fianna Foyle administration, refused to be recorded for posterity, so Strauss had to take notes.

In the documentary, his granddaughter, Shiofra Aiken, told his grandfather Frank Aiken, Sr.’s son, Frank Aiken, Sr., about it. Didn’t you tell me about the Altona Bay massacre in May, when six Protestants were killed in the area where he was in command of the 4th Northern Division?

“I asked him a few questions about the Civil War, and he didn’t answer,” said Frank Aiken, Jr. He answered me.”

While he was in Ireland, Strauss also interviewed more contemporary figures of the time. Among them was Basil Brooke, the former Prime Minister of Northern Ireland shortly before he died.

“He was very funny. I have never met anyone with such prejudice. Until his death, he held an anti-Catholic and ultra-Ulsteric stance,” he said. Told.

*Silent Civil War airs on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Wednesday, April 26th at 9:35 PM and continues on Wednesday, May 3rd.