A chara, – Congratulations are due to the authors of several fine scholarly pieces in your Decade of Centenaries supplement, War of Independence (June 3rd).
This year marks the centenary of other strands to the Irish revolution, such as the various national strikes and the declaration of local bodies in favour of Dáil Éireann. The election of socialist and republican candidates to local authorities kicked off years of activism which would end in their eventual suppression by the new states on either side of the Border. One such “troublemaker” was Dublin Corporation, which in May 1920 recognised Dáil Éireann, and by the end of a tumultuous year would find itself minus both the deeply controversial town clerk, Henry Campbell, and its Cork Hill offices, which had been seized by the British military, with Campbell reinstalled and soon to be knighted.
Speaking at an event in Trinity College Dublin last year to mark the centenary of the Democratic Programme, the historian Francie Devine called for the importance of the bureaucratic struggle at local authority level between the Dáil and Dublin Castle to be acknowledged alongside the history of the armed conflict. – Is mise,
DAVID FLOOD,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.