Dr Robin Adams has won the 2020 Thirsk-Feinstein Dissertation Prize from the Economic History Society for his thesis 'Shadow of a taxman: how, and by whom, was the Republican government financed in the Irish War of Independence (1919–21)?'.
The dissertation provides a detailed and multifaceted examination of the sources of funding for the Republican side of the Irish War of Independence. Drawing on hundreds of qualitative and quantitative archival sources from three countries, Dr Adams recounts the strategies that the Republicans used to sell their war bonds in Ireland and overseas, how they channeled funds from foreign sympathizers to military uses, and reconstructs the demographic profiles of people who provided financial support to the Republican cause.
Dr Adams completed his DPhil in the Economic and Social History Group at Oxford in 2019 and is now a Research Fellow at the Management School of Queen's University Belfast. His dissertation was supervised by Professor Kevin O'Rourke and Professor Senia Paseta.
