NEXT WEEK RTÉ will air The Silent Civil War, a documentary that tells the story of those who fought and died in the civil war through the testimony of those who remember them.
Filmmakers and historians from UCD conducted over 80 interviews with people – described by Associate Professor of History Dr. Conor Mulvagh as “memory-keepers” - from counties all across Ireland, including one man who was present at the funeral of Michael Collins.
Produced by Scratch Films, the film does not shy away from the trauma, moral ambiguity, and violence of the conflict, which turned former comrades against one another.
The documentary devotes a lengthy segment to the story of Eileen Biggs of Tipperary, a 43-year-old woman who was sexually assaulted by a group of men in IRA uniform. Her medical records show that the damage was so extensive she nearly needed her leg amputated.
Biggs received 13 years of psychiatric treatment after the event, and lived in care until her death in 1950.
The documentary is similarly unsparing in recounting the fate of Tom and John O’Connor-Scarteen, two young men shot in their home after having been convinced to join the pro-Treaty side after hearing a speech by Michael Collins.
One Kerryman reads a letter addressed to his grandmother from her brother, written just four hours before his execution. Dr Síobhra Aiken, one of the historians working on the project, interviews her grandfather and former TD Frank Aiken about the role his father played as a general of the IRA.
The two-part documentary also unearths over 30 hours of previously unheard audio recordings of 32 prominent figures involved in those revolutionary years in Ireland.
These interviews were conducted by an American academic, Harlan J. Strauss, as part of his post-graduate work in 1972. Strauss appears in the documentary to meet some of the descendants of the larger-than-life figures he interviewed, a list that includes Frank Aiken, Dan Breen, Peadar O’Donnell, Máire Comerford, John A. Costello, Ernest Blythe, Seán Dowling among many others.
Even though the conflict is long over, the reverberations are still keenly felt by the descendants of those who fought, and suffered, and died. The Silent Civil War presents reams of tangible and profoundly emotive narratives that trace the trauma of the war through to the present day.
Those of us who grew up long after the civil war had ended are accustomed to hearing that the generation who lived through it often refused to talk about it. The echoes of the conflict are still felt today, with many older people keeping their voting preference a closely guarded secret, lest it suggest a certain affiliation to either the pro or anti-Treaty side of the civil war.
Grandchildren remember the silence of their ancestors, the refusal to acknowledge with either shame or pride what took place in Ireland between 1922 and 1923. The documentary uses the aftermath of that silence to tell the story that nobody wanted to tell, and does so in a way that is sure to have a lasting impact.
The two-part series will begin on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Wednesday 26th April at 9:35pm.
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