In 2023, actor and singer-songwriter Eoghan Burke (eoghanburkeartist.wordpress.com) won a creative practitioner bursary from Westmeath County Council with the goal of exploring an aspect of the Civil War in Westmeath. Eoghan decided to focus on the story of Richard Bertles, who was shot and fatally wounded in Ballymore in January 1923. Eoghan told that story through his subsequent song ‘When the Carnival Returns’ and, on Sunday 20 October 2024, Historian in Residence Ian Kenneally interviewed Eoghan for RTÉ Radio One’s The History Show.

The full report can be found here on the RTÉ website:

Richard Bertles was a veteran of the War of Independence, during which he had been a prominent member of the IRA’s Athlone Brigade, taking part in multiple attacks on the British Crown forces. Those forces captured Bertles in June 1921 and he was sentenced to five years penal servitude. He was, however, released in the prisoner amnesty that followed the signing in December 1921 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty: an agreement that he opposed. During the subsequent Civil War, Bertles became an active member of the anti-Treaty IRA in the locality, a decision that led to the events of January 1923.

More details about Richard Bertles, his life and the circumstances of his death, can be found here on the Historian in Residence Blog.

Content Last Updated/Reviewed: 11/11/2024