Fr Ted creator in Portlaoise for talk on assassinated Irish rebel from Laois

Arthur Matthews is best know for co-creating the legendary TV comedy Fr Ted but he has also turned his creativity to history and is coming to Laois to talk about one of the key players in the fight for Irish freedom.

Portlaoise Library is currently running its popular summer series of local history talks. The talk on Wednesday evening, July 24 is Kevin O’Higgins, his Friends and Enemies by Arthur Mathews.

Kevin O’Higgins, born in Stradbally in 1892, was prominent locally and nationally in the Irish War of Independence, Irish Civil War and early years of the Irish Free State. 

Apart from taking up arms in the struggle for freedom. He played a key role in establishing and stabilising the Irish Free State after Britain departed.

He is credited with consolidating the newly established institutions of post-treaty Ireland and establishing civil control of the new state by founding the unarmed Garda Síochána and successfully confronting the private factions within the Free State army. MORE BELOW PICTURE.

However, he is also associated with the passing of the Army Emergency Powers Resolution, which authorised internment, military courts, and executions as legal instruments for the national army during the Irish Civil War. The execution of 71 republican prisoners, in retaliation for republican attacks during the Civil War, made him a particular object of hate for republicans. He was assassinated in 1927 in Dublin.

In his new book Walled in by Hate, Arthur Mathews examines not just the life and death of O’Higgins, focussing on that acrimonious time in his life, but also examines the role of his contemporaries, such as Rory O’Connor and Erskine Childers, who shaped the course of events around him.

The book also delves deep into Kevin O’Higgins’s relationship with the women around him and chronicles the reactions of the men who killed him, subjects that have remained largely unexplored until now.

Apart from Fr Ted, Mr Mathews has had a varied career also including acting, producing and writing novels and plays.

The event takes place on Wednesday, July 24 at 7 pm in Portlaoise Library. Booking is advised by contacting the library on 0578622333, portlaoiselibrary@laoiscoco.ie

The final talk in the series is Land and Labour in Laois from 1904 to 1924 by Laois Historian-in-Residence Terry Dunne. This talk, which takes place on Wednesday 31 st July at 7pm, will look at labour and agrarian protest in Laois in the years just before and during the First World War and the Irish Revolution.

Terry Dunne is co-editor of a new collection of essays published with Four Courts Press, entitled Spirit of Revolution: Ireland from Below, 1917-1923. He has researched and written on a wide variety of Laois related history topics and his highly praised articles can be read on the Laois Local Studies website here.