Louth historian publishes book on the Irish Civil War

A local Ardee historian and great granddaughter of Frank Aiken has released a book examining the psychological trauma caused by the Irish Civil War.

Síobhra Aiken, a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast undertook a study of Ireland’s post-Civil war period revealing the terrible psychological pressures suffered by those who took part. 

Siobhra’s new book bills itself as the most comprehensive study to date of veteran writings from the Irish Civil War and  demonstrates that the contentious events of the Irish Civil War were less forgotten than often believed. 

Spiritual Wounds uncovers a wealth of published veteran testimonies that have been overlooked by historians to date; many of the testimonies discussed predate the establishment of the Bureau of Military History in 1947.

Aiken unpacks the revolutionary veterans’ understanding of psychological trauma and how various ‘nervous conditions’ were treated in the early decades of the Irish Free State.

 A blurb for the book states: 

“The current vocabulary of ‘trauma’ and ‘posttraumatic stress disorder’ (PTSD) did not exist in 1920s Ireland. 

“Veterans of the Irish revolution were diagnosed with ‘conditions’ such as ‘nerves’, ‘hysteria’ and ‘neurasthenia’ – nervous conditions were often seen as a ‘female malady’. 

Dr Siobhra Aiken challenges the widespread belief that the contentious events of the Irish Civil War (1922–23) were covered in a total blanket of silence.  

“Many politicians and public figures advocated that the civil war was best forgotten for the sake of the common good. 

“However, there was a strong counter-culture to these calls for silence. Aiken’s book reveals an array of published testimonies by pro- and anti treaty men and women, written in both English and Irish. 

“Most of the testimonies discussed were produced in the 1920s and 1930s, and nearly all have been overlooked in historical study to date.

 “The silence of the Irish Civil War was not necessarily a result of revolutionaries’ inability to speak, but rather the unwillingness of official  memory makers to listen to the stories of civil war veterans.”

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