In April 1972, it was estimated there were some 32,000 living veterans of the ‘old IRA’, Cumann na mBan, and Na Fianna Éireann. Through the 1970s and 1980s, these veterans of Ireland’s revolutionary decade (1912-1923) entered old age. When they died, local newspapers published reverential obituaries.
These heroic narratives sat uneasily with the Republic of Ireland’s complex relationship with the ongoing Northern Ireland conflict. In the north, a younger generation of militant republicans waged guerrilla warfare against British rule. Constituted mainly in the Provisional IRA, these republicans considered themselves successors to the revolutionary heritage of the ‘good old IRA’, but the connection was contentious for the public, press, politicians, and republican veterans alike. Against this turbulent backdrop, how did ‘old IRA’ veterans historicise their own pasts, and how were they were remembered?
