Louth County Council is running the following two programmes as part of the Decade of Commemorations Centenaries Programme.
Louth Festival of History 2020
The 2020 festival will be an online lecture series. Talks and workshops will go beyond the traditional political and military histories of the Irish Revolution and instead bring to life the personal lived histories of the period. The range of topics covered is particularly topical, engaging with issues of border, political violence and national identity, at a time when these issues are as important as ever. The topics chosen are also extremely current representing the forefront of modern thinking on the period which will cement the Louth history festival's own position as one of the most important popular drivers of historical debate in Ireland.
Topics to be covered include:
- The pattern of revolutionary violence in Ireland and Louth
- The IRA boycott of 1920
- The threat of partition
- Cumann na mBan in Louth
- Family life one hundred years ago
- The RIC in Louth and in Ireland
- The Gaelic League and the Irish language
- British and Unionist propaganda in Ireland
- Political cartoons of the 1920s
- Fears of partition in Louth
- Local politics in Louth and the 1920 local election
- The cultural and literary scene in Louth in 1920
- Yeats and the Second Coming
- Success or failure? The Government of Ireland Act 1920 in Louth
- Dundalk, Drogheda and the trains - the importance of Louth to the country's industry
- The Protestant minority in Louth and surrounding areas
- County Down and Armagh in 1920 "cross-border" perspectives
- DeValera in America
- The foundation of the UVF
- The burning of the Big House
- Sport in Louth
- The sack of Balbriggan and the burning of Cork
- Labour agitation in Louth
Louth 1920 Online Exhibition - Louth County Archives Service
The project will digitise the minute books of Louth County Council, Drogheda Corporation, and the rural district councils for the 1920 period and a selection of other 1920 archives such as music and theatre related archives and local trade and business directories. Digitised copies will be placed online and through links, they will form part of an online exhibition commemorating 1920 which will be created in-house, by Louth County Archives Service.
The online exhibition will assist in understanding the events of the period and will include themes such as music and theatre 1919-1923, the 1920 all-island local elections, and the journey from revolution with violence into a functioning democracy.
This initiative is supported by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht under the Decade of Centenaries 2012-2023 initiative.
