Southern Irish Unionism: A Study of Cork Unionists, 1884–1914 (The Alexander Prize Essay)

Abstract

August The Fifth, 1914, was a cool, windy day at Mitchels-town. County Cork: but the guests at the houseparty in the Castle were not really conscious of the chilly breeze that whisked the clouds over the tops of the Galtee mountains that stood towering behind the Castle. Here during the afternoon the guests moved about the sunny, gusty terraces and talked, in little low groups, of the War. In retrospect, however, both this garden-party and those who attended it have a significance, dramatic and historical. August the fifth was the day after the War broke out; the garden-party was one of the last ever held in the Castle; and it was not a very ordinary group of people who talked of the War, and of whether its coming would avert the calamity of Home Rule.