Exhibit Highlights
Burns Library
Tom Williams - Irish Republican
March 5 – April 20, 2012
John J. Burns Library, Ford Tower
To view this exhibit, please see the Burns Library Hours.
Using both primary and secondary sources from across the Irish Collections at the John J. Burns Library, the exhibit includes a printed petition, a government document, a memorial pamphlet, a song book and LP records.
Belfast, 1942. A Royal Ulster Constabulary Officer is dead. The responsible parties are Tom Williams, an 18 year old commander of an Irish Republican Army unit, and his five soldiers. For their actions, each young man receives the death penalty. This exhibit follows the conditions in Northern Ireland that lead up to, and some of the consequences of, the judicial decision. It demonstrates how a single primary document has the potential to act as a source for many different research themes.
Related links: To read the original blog post about these items, read it on the John J. Burns Library Blog.
His Grace the Duke of Abercorn, the governor of Northern Ireland, Home Office, Belfast. [Belfast?: s.n., 1942] and McVeigh, Jim. Executed: Tom Williams and the IRA. Belfast: Beyond the Pale, 1999.