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Peter Hart (born 11 November 1963) is a Canadian historian, specialising in modern Irish history.

Life

Hart was born and raised in St. John's, Newfoundland. He studied for one year at the Memorial University of Newfoundland before moving to study at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He graduated from there with an Honours BA degree. Subsequently, Hart completed a Masters degree in International Relations at Yale University. He then moved to Ireland to do PhD work at Trinity College, Dublin. His thesis was on the Irish Republican Army in county Cork, which was the basis of his first book, "The IRA and its Enemies". After completing his doctorate, Hart accepted a five year teaching and research position at Queen's University Belfast. In 2003, having completed this contract, Hart moved back to Canada to take up the position of Canada Research Chair in Irish Studies at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is also an associate professor at Memorial University.

Works

He has written several books to date on what he terms the "Irish Revolution" of 1919-23 (more commonly referred to as the Irish War of Independence 1919-21 and the Irish Civil War 1922-23).

The first of these books is titled The IRA and Its Enemies, Violence and Community in Cork, 1916–1923 (1998), a study of the organisation's social composition and actions of the Irish Republican Army in County Cork during the War of Independence. This book won several awards, including the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize (1998).

Hart has since published British Intelligence in Ireland 1920-21: the Final Reports (2002) and The I.R.A. at War 1916-1923 (Oxford University Press, 2003), a collection of essays on various social, political and military aspects of the IRA in these years. They represent, Hart wrote in the preface, "sixteen years' work on the history of the Irish revolution." Peter Hart’s latest work is a biography of Michael Collins, titled Mick: the real Michael Collins (Macmillan, 2006).

Hart has also contributed to the volume, The Irish Revolution (2002) , which is a collection of articles by various historians of the period.

Review and criticism

According to the Times Higher Education, Hart's work "offers a revisionist version of events that proved highly controversial." However, Hart disputes that he is a "revisionist", calling it "pejorative labelling". In his review of The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923, fellow historian John Regan writes "Hart is neither a statist nor a southern nationalist, though the influence of both ideologies can be traced though his work."

A number of the claims Hart has made in his books have attracted criticism from other historians.

In The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923 he writes about the Kilmichael Ambush of November 1920, in which he argues that IRA commander Tom Barry killed wounded British Auxiliaries after they had surrendered. In his memoir, Barry states that the Auxiliaries made a false surrender, killing the IRA member who stood to take it, after which he ordered that no prisoners should be taken. Hart argues that this was an invention to justify the massacre, and Barry had the Auxiliaries killed after they had surrendered. Hart cites anonymous interviews which he conducted with IRA veterans of the ambush and an unsigned typed account of the encounter from British records purporting to be the 'Rebel Commandant's Report'. Other historians, including Brian Murphy, Meda Ryan and Niall Meehan say that Hart dates an interview with a veteran of the ambush six days after the last known veteran died, and that Hart met veterans at a time when, if alive, they were physically incapable of being interviewed. He has replied to this accusation by saying, “almost all my research was based on other people’s interviews that they had taped years before I wrote the book.” However, Meda Ryan says that none of the interviews conducted by people other than Hart mention the false surrender. she and others also criticize his use of anonymous sources, which they say makes academic verification impossible.

Hart stands by his work, stating that critics have failed to "engage with the book's larger arguments about the nature of the IRA and the Irish Revolution" and believing they are closed to "a real debate where people concede some things and put forward others or are skeptical about weak points and accept the strong points."

References

1. Brian P Murphy and Niall Meehan, Troubled History: A 10th anniversary critique of Peter Hart's The IRA and its Enemies, Aubane Historical Society (2008), ISBN 978 1 903497 46 3 Pg.6
2. ^ John Gill, Troubles and strife as IRA historian draws peers' fire, Times Higher Education, 3 July, 2008
3. The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize was created in 1977, in memory of Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, who was assassinated by the IRA in 1976.
4. Joost Augusteijn, The Irish Revolution, 1913-1923, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0333982258
5. Peter Hart, Author's response: The IRA at War 1916–1923, Reviews in History, retrieved 29 August, 2009
6. John Regan, Book Review: The IRA at War 1916–1923, Reviews in History, retrieved 29 August 2009
7. ^ Diarmaid Fleming, 'War of words' over battle, BBC News, 26 November 2004
8. Meda Ryan, Tom Barry, IRA Freedom Fighter, Mercier Press, 2003, ISBN 1856354806
9. ^ Brian P Murphy and Niall Meehan, Troubled History: A 10th anniversary critique of Peter Hart's The IRA and its Enemies, Aubane Historical Society (2008), ISBN 978 1 903497 46 3, Pg.22-25
10. Interview with Peter Hart, http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=154484&sc=85
11. History Ireland, Vol. 13 No. 3 May/June 2005

External links

• Peter Hart homepage at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

• Canadian historians
• Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize recipients
• Canada Research Chairs
• Living people
• Yale University alumni
• 1963 births
• People from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
• Memorial University of Newfoundland faculty
• Alumni of Trinity College, Dublin
• Academics of Queen's University Belfast
• Queen's University alumni