Professor Eunan O'Halpin

Summary

This project has grown considerably in scope over the last six years. The overall aim remains to explore the impact of the war on Afghanistan, and to examine the means by which she avoided being drawn into the conflict despite her proximity to key belligerents - British India, and the Soviet Union - and the activities and plans of the Axis powers. It is based largely on research in British and American government records, which include a large amount of intercepted communications of the Afghan and other neutral and Axis states, as well as on significant private collections. Research in the National Archives of India and the Nehru Memorial Library in 2012 has enabled the further development of the project. It also opened up an unexpected vein of inquiry into the fate of Jews in Afghanistan, resulting in an article in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 30, no. 2 (Fall, 2016), pp. 298-327, and a number of entries with Dr Sara Koplik have been accepted for the revised Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (1st ed., Brill, 2010). Anarticle on British Cryptanalyis and China, 1937-1945, has recently appeared in Twentieth Century China 42, no. 2, May 2017, pp. 198-212. Further papers are in preparation dealing with Axis and with British intelligence concerning Afghanistan, and with Soviet communications concerning the USSR's southern frontiers in the 1930s.

Funding Agency

TCD Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund; IIIS

Programme

Personal research

Project Type

Monograph and articles

Person Months

69

Summary

This project explores explore the role of intelligence in British and Irish management of the Northern Ireland crisis from 1969 onwards. It also looks at how the two states negotiated understandings on security issues, on how their dealings in this delicate area were managed, and on how such dealings were managed at the professional interagency level as well as at the top intergovernmental table. The study also explores the extent to which security and terrorism issues were reflected in the diplomatic activities of both governments in the United States, as well as probing the changing perspective of successive American governments on the broader Northern Ireland issue. Drawing largely on British, Irish and American official records, it looks both at the highest levels of assessment and task setting in Whitehall, and at the operational performance of intelligence gatherers and assessors. It addresses questions arising from problems of leakage and collusion between the security forces and paramilitary groups, and issues surrounding the interrogation regime for prisoners and detainees. The latter problems were particularly significant in terms of Anglo-Irish relations, as London felt that Dublin played these issues up gratuitously. I hope to complete a monograph based on this research in 2011.

Funding Agency

IRCHSS

Programme

Small Projects

Project Type

Individual

Person Months

20

Summary

This project aims to establish who died where and in what circumstances and at who's hands as a result of Irish political violence between 1912 and 1923. The first volume arising from the project, by Eunan O'Halpin and Dr Daithi O Corrain, covering the years 1917 to 1921, was published by Yale University Press in October 2020.

Funding Agency

IRCHSS

Programme

Major Projects

Person Months

72