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This month ZSR Special Collections & Archives welcomes one of our 2016/2017 recipients of the WFU Provost’s Grant for Library Research. Tony King is a Ph.D. candidate at the National University of Ireland in Galway, and his research examines the relationship between the moderate Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and its American counterpart, the United Irish League of America (UILA), during the years 1901 to 1918.

During his two weeks in residence at WFU Tony is making use of the Irish history materials in ZSR Special Collections. In particular he is consulting the United Irish League of America conference proceedings and the League’s newspaper, the United Irish League Bulletin of America. ZSR Special Collections is one of only two recorded library holdings for the Bulletin.

On Friday, November 11 at 10:00 a.m. Tony will give a talk on his research in ZSR Special Collections & Archives. Titled “Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: The Irish Parliamentary Party and the United Irish League of America, 1901-1914,” Tony’s lecture promises to be a fascinating (and timely) account of how moderate reformers tried to hold their own as radicalism and violence took hold in early 20th century Ireland:

The role played by the Irish American diaspora in the winning of Irish independence is often over-romanticized. Secret revolutionary organizations, clandestine arms shipments, and cosy alliances with a coterie of global nationalist movements has come to dominate the narrative. Few people even remember that before armed insurrection consumed Dublin in Easter week in 1916 a successful relationship existed between moderates on both sides of the Atlantic committed to achieving Home Rule for Ireland through parliamentary reform. How and why this relationship deteriorated, creating the vacuum for the resurgence of radical republicanism, is the subject of this talk.

This lecture is free and open to all members of the WFU community and to the general public. For more information email archives@wfu.edu or call 336-758-5091.