History Studies: University of Limerick Society Journal Vol (23)

The theme selected for volume 23 was ‘responding to crisis’ and the excellent papers we publish here are varied reminders of how crisis so often shapes our history and how what people do in the face of crisis forms a very important part of understanding the past.

Most of the papers in this volume explore crisis points in Irish social history, but the volume opens with Sandra Fleischmann’s examination of people she terms ‘heroes in crisis’ – First World War German veterans with mental health issues whose lived experience did not fit the narrative of the Nazi government and whose subsequent treatment was harsh, but ‘legalised’. Next Robert Gullifer uses a microhistorical approach to examine the crisis in relations between the Catholic and Anglican churches in England in 1850. His reading of Canon George Townsend’s published journal skilfully sheds light on doctrinal issues which were of social and political significance in the early 1850s. Two Irish studies look at what it meant to be a Protestant in changing Irish society during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Craig Copley-Brown reviews the dynamics within Protestant male social networks through the lens of those living in Limerick in the century from 1813, whilst Rachel Beck sheds light on the specific experience of Methodists in the first decade of the Irish Free State. Both draw out the subtleties of response from those living through major social change. Extending this Irish perspective, Mary-Alice Wildasin looks at how and why many Irish Catholics chose Quebec as their emigration destination in response to the Great Famine, whilst Bríd O’Sullivan considers reaction to pre-marital pregnancy and illegitimacy in West Clare in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Thank you to all published here and my thanks go wholeheartedly to Dr David Fleming who offered me the chance to take on the role of editor, whilst also helping me out when the going got tough! Of course, these papers represent only a fraction of the historical issues that could have been chosen by potential writers and only some of the ideas many put up for discussion but which for one reason or another did not make it to publication this time. I also thank Dr Maelle Le Roux, a previous editor, and Rachel Beck, the incoming editor, who stepped in to help prepare this volume for publication.

Simon Salem