A Coward if I Return, A Hero if I Fall


Book Description

IRELAND'S FORGOTTEN LEGACY In 1914-1918, two hundred thousand Irishmen from all religions and backgrounds went to war. At least thirty-five thousand never came home. Those that did were scarred for the rest of their lives. Many of these survivors found themselves abandoned and ostracised by their countrymen, their voices seldom heard. The book includes: - The first Victoria Cross - Leading the way at Gallipoli and the Somme - North and South fighting side by side at Messines Ridge - Ireland's flying aces - Brothers-in-arms – heart-rending stories of family sacrifice - The lucky escapes of some; the tragic end of others - The homecoming – why there was no hero's welcome Includes over 300 photographs and items of memorabelia from the lives of these brave men and their families. An important book that opened up the conversation in Ireland about our role in World War I. Updated, and with a new introduction.




A Coward If I Return, a Hero If I Fall


Book Description

IRELAND'S FORGOTTEN LEGACY In 1914-1918, two hundred thousand Irishmen from all religions and backgrounds went to war. At least thirty-five thousand never came home. An award-winning collection of veterans' stories as told by the families, with military records, surviving documents and letters.




A Coward If I Return, a Hero If I Fall


Book Description

IRELAND'S FORGOTTEN LEGACY In 1914-1918, two hundred thousand Irishmen from all religions and backgrounds went to war. At least thirty-five thousand never came home. An award-winning collection of veterans' stories as told by the families, with military records, surviving documents and letters.




According to their Lights


Book Description

e eclectic scientist and inventor Prof. John Joly from Co. Offaly who, at fifty-eight, helped to defend Trinity College Dublin throughout the Rising. Many enlisted to fight for Irish Home Rule or Ulster Unionism, to find adventure or escape from poverty. None imagined they would find themselves on the streets of Dublin, killing – and being killed by – fellow Irishmen. Forty-one Irishmen in the British army died in action during the Rising, 106 were wounded. These men became a forgotten part of their country's history. • Also available: 'Blackpool to the Front: A Cork Suburb and Ireland's Great War 1914–1918' by Mark Cronin and 'When the Clock Struck in 1916: Close-Quarter Combat in the Easter Rising' by Derek Molyneux & Darren Kelly




Dark Times, Decent Men


Book Description

Over 130,000 Irishmen and women served during the Second World War despite Ireland's neutrality. Seven thousand five hundred never returned. Illustrated with over 130 photographs and memorabilia, Dark Times, Decent Men gathers dramatic first-hand stories from Irishmen who went to war:




Truce:


Book Description

On 8 July 1921 a Truce between the IRA and British forces in Ireland was announced, to begin three days later. However, in those three days at least sixty people from both sides of the conflict were killed. In 'Truce', Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc goes back to the facts to reveal what actually happened in those three bloody days, and why. •What sparked Belfast's 'Bloody Sunday' in 1921, the worst bout of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland's troubled history? • Why were four unarmed British soldiers kidnapped and killed by the IRA in Cork just hours before the ceasefire began? •Who murdered Margaret Keogh, a young Dublin rebel, in cold blood on her own doorstep? •Were the last spies shot by the IRA really working for British intelligence or just the victims of anti-Protestant bigotry? This book answers these questions for the first time and separates fact from fiction to find out what really happened in the final battles between the IRA and the British forces.




The Coward


Book Description

Who will take up the mantle and slay the evil in the Frozen North, saving all from death and destruction? Not Kell Kressia, he's done his part... Kell Kressia is a legend, a celebrity, a hero. Aged just seventeen he set out on an epic quest with a band of wizened fighters to slay the Ice Lich and save the world, but only he returned victorious. The Lich was dead, the ice receded and the Five Kingdoms were safe. Ten years have passed Kell lives a quiet farmer's life, while stories about his heroism are told in every tavern across the length and breadth of the land. But now a new terror has arisen in the north. Beyond the frozen circle, north of the Frostrunner clans, something has taken up residence in the Lich's abandoned castle. And the ice is beginning to creep south once more. For the second time, Kell is called upon to take up his famous sword, Slayer, and battle the forces of darkness. But he has a terrible secret that nobody knows. He's not a hero - he was just lucky. Everyone puts their faith in Kell the Legend, but he's a coward who has no intention of risking his life for anyone...




The Red Horizon


Book Description




The Cambridge Companion to the Poetry of the First World War


Book Description

The poetry of the First World War remains a singularly popular and powerful body of work. This Companion brings together leading scholars in the field to re-examine First World War poetry in English at the start of the centennial commemoration of the war. It offers historical and critical contexts, fresh readings of the important soldier-poets, and investigations of the war poetry of women and civilians, Georgians and Anglo-American modernists and of poetry from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the former British colonies. The volume explores the range and diversity of this body of work, its rich afterlife and the expanding horizons and reconfiguration of the term 'First World War Poetry'. Complete with a detailed chronology and guide to further reading, the Companion concludes with a conversation with three poets - Michael Longley, Andrew Motion and Jon Stallworthy - about why and how the war and its poetry continue to resonate with us.




Remembrance of the Great War in the Irish Free State, 1914–1937


Book Description

This book focuses on how Irish remembrance of the First World War impacted the emerging Irish identity in the postcolonial Irish Free State. While all combatants of the “war to end all wars” commemorated the war, Irish memorial efforts were fraught with debate over Irish identity and politics that frequently resulted in violence against commemorators and World War I veterans. The book examines the Flanders poppy, the Victory and Armistice Day parades, the National War Memorial, church memorials, and private remembrances. Highlighting the links between war, memory, empire and decolonization, it ultimately argues that the Great War, its commemorations, and veterans retained political potency between 1914 and 1937 and were a powerful part of early Free State life.