April 2016 Lecture - "In Tuam and district there has been no disturbance"? Tuam and North Galway at 1916

Our lecture series continues this Tuesday, 5th of April in Tuam Library at 8 pm. The Society is delighted to welcome our Treasurer, Martin O'Donoghue for his talk examining Tuam and district in 1916.

Reflecting on the events of Easter week 1916, the Tuam Herald reported that ‘in Tuam and district there has been no disturbance’ and that apart from the disruption to postal and rail services, the town remained true to Thackreray’s ‘caustic description of a nigh a hundred years ago – “the little humdrum town of Tuam”’. This lecture seeks to assess how accurate such a description was by providing an overview of the small, though committed, advanced nationalist movements in Tuam from the turn of the century. Efforts to mobilise Volunteers in the Tuam area are set against this background and local reactions to the Rising are scrutinised. Although Tuam did not rise in 1916, the town was also fairly typical in transferring support to the revitalised Sinn Féin by the time of the 1918 election. This lecture will reflect on this change as well as considering events in Tuam in comparison with events in other parts of the county.