Texte remanié de: Th. Ph. D.--Department of Archaeology--University College Cork, 1996. / Bibliogr. p. 285-293. Index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1930. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 121-128.

In April 1919, the Trades and Labour Council of Limerick County, Ireland, declared a general strike in response to the increasingly militarised policing of the region by the British authorities. A Strike Committee, consisting of local activists, assumed governance of Limerick for two weeks. While various attempts have been made to uncover this largely forgotten chapter of Irish history, the voices and perspectives of workers who initiated and sustained the general strike remain largely absent from the historical record. Therefore, this thesis utilises newspapers and documents produced by local activists in order to assess workers’ motivations for embracing direct action and participating in this radical act of protest. Firstly, I will discuss how the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) capitalised on the perceived shortcomings of craft unions and parliamentary strategies by offering a more self-sufficient model of labour activism. Additionally, I will challenge the notion that direct action in Limerick was a fundamentally ‘pragmatic’ endeavour by exploring various ideological currents which inspired workers to participate in the general strike. The Limerick Soviet was not only conceived as a response to specific grievances but was framed by some participants as an act of defiance against both capitalism and British colonialism. Consequently, this thesis will examine how global anti-colonialist and anti-capitalist ideologies and movements influenced the political climate of Limerick between 1916 and 1920. This thesis will also demonstrate the capacity of local activists to adapt and amend ideologies they encountered in order to suit the particularities of the local economic and political climate.

abstract: This study examines history museums in Arizona and New Mexico to determine whether New Western History themes are prevalent, twenty years after the term was conceived. Patricia Limerick is credited with using the expression in the 1980s, but she had to promote the concept frequently and for many years. There was resistance to changing from the Frederick Jackson Turner thesis of looking at the frontier as an expansion from the East, even while others were already writing more current historiography. Limerick’s four “Cs”—continuity, convergence, conquest, and complexity—took a view of the West from the West, worthy of a separate perspective. These themes also allowed historians to reflect on what was happening locally, how and why various people were interacting, how there was less of a benevolent imbuing of European culture on Native Americans than there was a conquest of indigenous people, and how resource extraction created complex situations for all living things. While scholarly works were changing to provide relevant material based on these themes, museums were receiving thousands of visitors every year and may have been providing the Anglo-centric view of events or creating more inclusive displays. Label texts could have been either clarifying or confusing to a history loving audience. Three types of museums were visited to determine whether there was a difference in display based on governing body. National Park Service sites, state sponsored institutions, and local city-based museums served as the study material. The age of the existing long-term exhibits ranged from brand new to fifty-one years extant. As important to the use of New Western History themes as the term of the current exhibit was the type of governing body. Monographs, essays, and museum exhibits are all important to the dissemination of history. How they relate and how current they are to each other creates an opportunity for both academic and museum professional historians to reflect on the delivery systems used to enlighten a history-loving public. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2015