Description

The World Upturning: Elsie Henry’s Irish Wartime Diaries, 1913–1919 is an edited historical source volume by Clara Cullen, published by Irish Academic Press in 2013. The work presents the personal diaries of Elsie Henry, covering the turbulent years spanning the outbreak of World War I through to the post-1916 revolutionary period in Ireland.

The diaries were written from Dublin, primarily her home in Ranelagh, and record both private life and public events during a period of profound political and social upheaval. Henry documents wartime anxieties, news from the front lines involving family members serving in British and Canadian forces, and her involvement in Red Cross work at the College of Science in Dublin.

A major feature of the work is its insight into Dublin’s social and intellectual circles. Henry records interactions with prominent figures of the time, including writers, politicians, and nationalists such as W.B. Yeats, Eoin MacNeill, Bulmer Hobson, and Æ, offering a unique perspective on political and cultural conversations of the era.

The diaries also capture key historical moments:

• The growing tensions leading up to World War I (1914)
• The impact of the war on Irish society and families
• The Easter Rising of 1916 and its aftermath
• The gradual political transformation leading toward independence

What makes the work especially valuable is its blend of personal observation, newspaper extracts, letters, and diary entries, which together create a layered account of how ordinary citizens experienced extraordinary events.

Rather than offering retrospective analysis, the book preserves the immediacy of lived experience. It is widely used in studies of:

• Gender and historical memory
• Irish social history (1910–1920 period)
• First World War civilian perspectives
• Anglo-Irish cultural networks

Overall, it stands as an important primary-source publication that bridges personal narrative and national history during one of the most transformative decades in modern Irish history.