'...and that created terror'. The dynamics of civilian-combatant interactions in County Kerry, 1918-1923

Abstract

" ..and that created terror". The dynamics of civilian combatant interactions in County Kerry, 1918-1923 This thesis explores the dynamics of civilian combatant interactions in County Kerry in the Irish revolutionary period of 1918-1923. Using contemporaneous Irish and British newspapers, police and army records, documentation produced by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and memoirs, this thesis looks at the ways in which the combatants of the Irish revolution both thought about and interacted with the civilian population around them. The thesis shows that violence against civilians and control over the civilian population was vital to both British policy in Ireland and the IRA during the conflict(s). The thesis also looks at how these issues played out in the civil war of 1922-23. County Kerry, in the south west of Ireland, is used throughout as a case study.