Jun 27, 2026 · 1 hr 33 min · 13 segments
Mickey Moran is joined by Gerard Shannon, an acclaimed author of several books, key among them being 'Liam Lynch - To Declare A Republic'. In this episode the life of this giant of Irish Republican…
Mickey MoranHost
You've kind of answered one of the first questions I was going to ask is, and it's kind of the obvious question, biographies coming out of what people might term the main figures on a regular basis, be it De Valera or Collins.
But Lynch is someone who hasn't actually, as you alluded to, had a biography in almost 40 years, and there hasn't been that much written about him.
You know, it's something I wondered when I sat down to even research Lynch's firm, because my thesis, he very much was a very gifted guerrilla commander, which was extraordinary for someone of no military background.
But, I mean, he was one of the most important IRA leaders, and he was certainly the most important IRA leader outside Dublin during the War of Independence.
By the time of the truce in July 1921, he is head of the 1st Southern Division, which encompasses much of the brigades in the southwest.
So he is the most important IRA leader outside any of them, such as McCaghy and Collins and Nona Duffy on IRA GHQ.
And again, like, as I've alluded to, like, I mean, we've had a lot of personal papers become available of Lynch's contemporaries, be it Mos Toomey, Ernie O'Malley, Eamon de Valera, of course.
And they revealed that Lynch was very much an integral figure that, you know, people corresponded with.
And particularly when we come into the Civil War, he was leader of the military resistance, the Republican military resistance to the free state.
You know, he very much shaped the military policy, for good or ill, as we can go into, for Republicans.
So like in light of that and his importance and his centrality to events and how important he becomes to Republican historical memory following his death immediately on the 10th of April, 1923, and particularly in the first few decades after his death, yeah it's very unusual that he hasn't really been looked at extensively but i i think one reason i often thought of it that is because i think for a lot of people lynch is very much defined you know he's the die-hard militants he is you know he's just a military leader like there's not much to illuminate or very interesting about him and you know there's very interesting aspects of his character that you know you can tease out in both the personal and military correspondence is available and the accounts of others i mean It's important to remember he was someone really held up in very high regard, even by opponents during the Civil War who wrote about him decades later.
Richard Mulcahy, of all people, calls him the lion of the resistance movements during the Dan War.
Mulcahy has that in his memoirs about Lynch, which again, of course, he's not the only one who praises Lynch, but the come from someone who was essentially lynch's opposite number during the civil war is very striking
yeah and i think that's something you you read a lot in kind of memoirs of the period that there is this sense of i suppose mutual respect and almost regret over over what happened during during the period as obviously listeners to this podcast will probably refer more to the the counter-revolution rather than the civil war but yes of course but we'll uh continue on there You mentioned kind of new sources that became available and obviously the opening up of archives, etc.
You've kind of answered one of the first questions I was going to ask is, and it's kind of the obvious question, biographies coming out of what people might term the main figures on a regular basis, be it De Valera or Collins.
But Lynch is someone who hasn't actually, as you alluded to, had a biography in almost 40 years, and there hasn't been that much written about him.
You know, it's something I wondered when I sat down to even research Lynch's firm, because my thesis, he very much was a very gifted guerrilla commander, which was extraordinary for someone of no military background.
But, I mean, he was one of the most important IRA leaders, and he was certainly the most important IRA leader outside Dublin during the War of Independence.
By the time of the truce in July 1921, he is head of the 1st Southern Division, which encompasses much of the brigades in the southwest.
So he is the most important IRA leader outside any of them, such as McCaghy and Collins and Nona Duffy on IRA GHQ.
And again, like, as I've alluded to, like, I mean, we've had a lot of personal papers become available of Lynch's contemporaries, be it Mos Toomey, Ernie O'Malley, Eamon de Valera, of course.
And they revealed that Lynch was very much an integral figure that, you know, people corresponded with.
And particularly when we come into the Civil War, he was leader of the military resistance, the Republican military resistance to the free state.
You know, he very much shaped the military policy, for good or ill, as we can go into, for Republicans.
So like in light of that and his importance and his centrality to events and how important he becomes to Republican historical memory following his death immediately on the 10th of April, 1923, and particularly in the first few decades after his death, yeah it's very unusual that he hasn't really been looked at extensively but i i think one reason i often thought of it that is because i think for a lot of people lynch is very much defined you know he's the die-hard militants he is you know he's just a military leader like there's not much to illuminate or very interesting about him and you know there's very interesting aspects of his character that you know you can tease out in both the personal and military correspondence is available and the accounts of others i mean It's important to remember he was someone really held up in very high regard, even by opponents during the Civil War who wrote about him decades later.
Richard Mulcahy, of all people, calls him the lion of the resistance movements during the Dan War.
Mulcahy has that in his memoirs about Lynch, which again, of course, he's not the only one who praises Lynch, but the come from someone who was essentially lynch's opposite number during the civil war is very striking
yeah and i think that's something you you read a lot in kind of memoirs of the period that there is this sense of i suppose mutual respect and almost regret over over what happened during during the period as obviously listeners to this podcast will probably refer more to the the counter-revolution rather than the civil war but yes of course but we'll uh continue on there You mentioned kind of new sources that became available and obviously the opening up of archives, etc.
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