About Towards a Republic Towards a Republic is an innovative digitisation and engagement project which opens up the archives of the National Library of Ireland to tell the story of Ireland’s journey to independence. Part of the Library’s ongoing projects marking the Irish Decade of Centenaries (1912-1923), Towards a Republic provides insights into the events and personalities that shaped the revolutionary period in Ireland. Material that has been newly digitised and catalogued for Towards a Republic includes the personal papers of Arthur Griffith, Annie O’Farrelly, Elizabeth O’Farrell and Julia Grenan, Austin Stack and Laurence Ginnell, amongst many others. Further material highlights the activities of important organisations such as the Irish National Aid and Volunteers Dependents Fund which provided much needed financial support to the families of men killed or arrested during the 1916 Easter Rising. These collections offer insights into the complex events and people that shaped the later revolutionary period and Irish Civil War. The primary evidence revealed by Towards a Republic helps us to understand and contextualise the decisions, motivations and reactions of these men and women within the complicated and changing world they lived in a century ago. For example, the letters and memoirs of Kathleen Clarke, a prominent republican nationalist, recall her early life in Limerick as part of an influential Fenian family, and her meeting and later marriage to Tom Clarke, his participation in the Easter Rising and subsequent execution. Her memoirs, which are both handwritten and typescripts, detail her imprisonment in Holloway Jail and her influential political career in Sinn Féin. They also emphasise her belief that her husband had not been given sufficient credit as the main organiser of the 1916 Easter Rising. Clarke’s memoirs, written after the events took place, offer an interesting comparison with her letters in which she wrote about the events as they happened. Both her letters and memoirs have been digitised and made available online as part of Towards a Republic. Another example of letters and papers which offer an insight into the personal lives and experiences of key political figures are those of Arthur Griffith. These papers contain correspondence between Arthur and his wife Maud during his many imprisonments in this period, and loving letters to his young son Nevin in which he asks him to take care of his mother. The varied material in Towards a Republic goes beyond the direct experience and perspectives of the individuals themselves. Through their correspondence and interaction with diverse and opposing figures and organisations we are given a fuller picture of life during this period. The Towards a Republic project also illuminates • Prisoner of War Experiences: A vast selection of correspondences with family and friends, including postcards, letters and photographs in internment camps such as Frongoch prison. Not only do these primary sources highlight the struggles of prisoner life at this time, they provide glimpses into their family lives and how revolutionary politicians were still parents and did not abandon these duties, despite their imprisonment. This unique viewpoint is possible through the National Library of Ireland online catalogue (http://catalogue.nli.ie/) and provides an extra layer to the lived experiences of those during this time. • The Impact of Conflict on Everyday Life: Materials within the TAR project highlight the impact of this period on people’s everyday lives. The archive includes eyewitness accounts that demonstrate the difficulties ordinary people faced on a daily basis including raids on their homes and businesses, communication lines being cut, food and supply shortages, curfews, and constraints on their travel. For example, Dr. Dorothy Stopford-Prices, who was a medical officer in Kilbrittain Co. Cork during the War of Independence, wrote in a letter to her mother Constance of the isolation she felt as the telegraph lines had been cut, halting her communication with the outside world. Increased violence was something which people across the island experienced as clashes between armed groups such as the Irish Republic Army, the Black and Tans, and the Auxiliaries could often result in reprisal acts on civilians in towns and villages such as the burning of Cork city centre in December 1920. • Print & Propaganda: The Towards a Republic project contains evidence of the propaganda used to sway public opinion, utilised by both sides, and a demonstration of how future nations would use it to their advantage to further political belief. Photographs, letters, posters, ticket stubs, diaries and a variety of other primary sources available within the TAR project contextualise the Irish situation within broader international movements. They illustrate the many different national and international groups and networks which Irish men and women were active in, including cultural nationalism, socialism, and pacifism to name a few. Many of the people included in the Towards a Republic project were prominent in multiple organisations such as Sinn Féin, Cumann na mBan, the Irish Women Worker’s Union, the IRA, the Irish White Cross, and more. Their papers demonstrate the interconnectedness of important movements such as Irish nationalism and unionism with the labour movement and the women’s suffrage movement not just in Ireland, but across the world. The material in Toward a Republic reveals the impact and influence of the Irish independence movement on other countries across the world (and vice versa), including Russia and India. New states were formed and the map of Europe was redrawn following the collapse of Empires with the end of the First World War. Irish men and women witnessed and recorded important events such as the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Their first-hand accounts and reactions to these momentous events are available to read in the Towards a Republic digitised collections. Materials available within Towards a Republic highlight uncomfortable histories such as sexual violence against women in the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War. Through letters, memoirs and diaries these personal accounts also demonstrate the lasting impact of Civil War divisions on friends and families many years after the events took place. One poignant example is a photograph of the wedding party of Kevin O’Higgins and Brigid Cole taken in 1921, with Rory O’Connor as O’Higgins best man. O’Higgins and O’Connor took opposing sides in the Civil War Treaty debates and O’Higgins, as a minister in the Irish Free State, would later sign O’Connor’s execution order. These newly digitised resources comprise a rich archive that brings to life the historical period of 1918-1923, revealing the social, cultural and political context of the period and illustrating the impact the struggle for Irish independence had on people’s everyday lives. .