IRA Jailbreaks 1918-1921


Book Description

First published as: Sworn to be free. Tralee, Ireland: Anvil Press, 1971.




IRA Jailbreaks 1918-1921


Book Description

IRA Jailbreaks 1918-1921 features the factual accounts of 25 daring rescues, rescue attempts and jailbreaks which raised the morale of nationalist Ireland and brought world-wide ridicule and discredit on the prison and internment camp systems in Britain and Ireland. With stories of their resistence to the degrading criminal code by the political prisoners, the hunger strikes and jail riots, the savage beatings and punishments the prisoners suffered during their incarceration, their accounts offer a window on the world of the men who fought and were imprisoned during the struggle for Ireland's independence. Here is history documented by the men who made it.




The I.R.A. and Its Enemies


Book Description

What is it like to be in the IRA - or at their mercy? This study explores the lives and deaths of the enemies and victims of the County Cork IRA between 1916 and 1923.




The Spanish Flu in Ireland


Book Description

This book examines the Irish experience of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic through a detailed study of the disease in the most industrialised region of the country, the province of Ulster. By exploring the different themes of dispersion of the disease; mortality; gender; medical response and politics - and through case studies of different towns in the province of Ulster - it builds up a picture of the social, economic and political impact of influenza in Ireland. The Ulster experience of the pandemic is examined by constructing micro-histories of industrial cities and towns, along with provincial market towns and a naval port, to provide a basis for comparison of the differing approaches taken to combat the influenza outbreaks throughout Ulster. Contemporary opinion was that Ireland was considerably less affected by the war than the rest of the UK but, this book shows that the war did have a significant influence on how the influenza pandemic impacted on the Irish population from an economic, social and medical point of view. The book also explores the immediate aftermath of the pandemic and how it influenced the Irish response to the influenza scare of 1920 and the viral pandemic of Encephalitis Lethargica which was prevalent for ten years after 1918, as well as discussing what if any lessons learnt from 1918 have been applied to the present-day outbreak of Covid 19. This book will be of interest to academics in economic history, social history, Irish history and pandemic history, and those studying the effects of pandemics on the economy, health provision and pandemic preparedness.




Jailbreak


Book Description

The IRA’s spectacular 1983 breakout from the Maze Prison was the biggest jailbreak in UK penal history. It was the culmination of a long and valiant tradition of escape bids by Irish republican prisoners, who saw it as their moral duty to escape, attempting to do so in increasingly daring and audacious ways. Spanning the period 1865–1983, this collection features escapes on land, air and sea, including bomb blasts, tunnel escapes, mass breakouts and helicopter airlifts. Jailbreak is a fascinating chronicle, with each chapter featuring a history altering jailbreak, such as Éamon de Valera’s cunning rescue from Lincoln Jail in 1919, the ‘Greatest Escape’ of 112 anti -Treaty prisoners from Newbridge Barracks in 1922 and the epic helicopter airlift of IRA leaders from Mountjoy Prison in 1973. In this hugely entertaining book, James Durney deftly records twenty-three action-packed factual accounts of daring rescues, incredible escape bids and jailbreaks that raised the morale of nationalist Ireland and defied the might of empires and governments.




Spike Island's Republican Prisoners, 1921


Book Description

In 1921, during the Irish War of Independence, the fort on Spike Island in County Cork was the largest British-military-run prison for Republican prisoners and internees in the Martial Law area, housing almost 1,400 men from Munster and south Leinster. Tom O'Neill has compiled an outstanding record of these men, using primary-source material from Irish Military Archives, British Army records, and prisoner and internee autograph books. This book includes details of arrests, charges, trials, convictions, sentences and transfers of the Republicans held on Spike Island. From the establishment of the military prison in 1921, to the escapes, hunger strikes and riots, as well as the fatal shooting by sentries of two internees that took place there, Spike Island's Republican Prisoners, 1921 is the first comprehensive history of individuals and events on the island during the Irish War of Independence. Spike Island is now a world-class tourist attraction.




Kilkenny


Book Description

Veteran IRA leader Ernie O’Malley criticised County Kilkenny as being ‘slack’ during the War of Independence, but this fascinating new study of the period, by historian Eoin Swithin Walsh, challenges that view and reveals that Kilkenny was truly at the forefront of the struggle for Irish freedom. No Kilkenny citizen escaped the revolutionary era untouched, especially during the turmoil that followed the Easter Rising of 1916, the upheaval of the War of Independence and the tumultuous Civil War. Key personalities, revolutionary organisations and dramatic events in Kilkenny illuminate the country-wide struggle. Not to be forgotten, the lives of the ‘ordinary’ men and women of the county are explored, emphasising a life beyond politics and conflict. The listing of Kilkenny fatalities during the War of Independence is examined and, for the first time, combatants and civilians who died during the Truce and the Civil War are recorded, revealing an even more deadly conflict than previously believed. Presenting a complete history of the county in the opening decades of the twentieth century – including the use of previously unseen archival material – Kilkenny: In Times of Revolution, 1900–1923 is an indispensable contribution to the literature on the turbulent birth of the Irish nation.




The IRA in Britain, 1919-1923


Book Description

A study of the activities of violent republicans in Britain during the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, 1919-1923, including gunrunning and their campaign of violence, as well as the reaction of the authorities.




Great Hatred


Book Description

THE IRISH TOP 10 BESTSELLER A gripping investigation into one of Irish history's greatest mysteries, Great Hatred reveals the true story behind one of the most significant political assassinations to ever have been committed on British soil. 'Heart-stopping . . . The book is both forensic and a page-turner, and ultimately deeply tragic, for Ireland as much as for the murder victim.' MICHAEL PORTILLO 'Gripping from start to finish. McGreevy turns a forensic mind to a political assassination that changed the course of history, uncovering a trove of unseen evidence in the process.' ANITA ANAND, author of The Patient Assassin 'Invaluable.' IRISH TIMES 'Intellgient and insightful.' IRISH INDEPENDENT On 22 June 1922, Sir Henry Wilson - the former head of the British army and one of those credited with winning the First World War - was shot and killed by two veterans of that war turned IRA members in what was the most significant political murder to have taken place on British soil for more than a century. His assassins were well-educated and pious men. One had lost a leg during the Battle of Passchendaele. Shocking British society to the core, the shooting caused consternation in the government and almost restarted the conflict between Britain and Ireland that had ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty just five months earlier. Wilson's assassination triggered the Irish Civil War, which cast the darkest of shadows over the new Irish State. Who ordered the killing? Why did two English-born Irish nationalists kill an Irish-born British imperialist? What was Wilson's role in the Northern Ireland government and the violence which matched the intensity of the Troubles fifty years later? Why would Michael Collins, who risked his life to sign a peace treaty with Great Britain, want one of its most famous soldiers dead, and how did the Wilson assassination lead to Collins' tragic death in an ambush two months later? Drawing upon newly released archival material and never-before-seen documentation, Great Hatred is a revelatory work that sheds light on a moment that changed the course of Irish and British history for ever. 'McGreevy provides more than the anatomy of a political murder; in reconstructing this era of blood, poverty and wartime trauma, he also gives full expression to the terrible forces that WB Yeats once called the "fanatic heart" and the "great hatred".' THE TIMES 'Thoughtful and well-researched . . . an important and valuable addition to the library of the Irish Revolution.' PROFESSOR DIARMAID FERRITER, University College Dublin




Irish Political Prisoners 1960-2000


Book Description

This is a comprehensive, detailed and humane account of the thousands who came into custody during the years of the Northern Ireland conflict and how they lived out the months, years and decades in Irish and English maximum security prisons. Erupting in 1969, the Northern Ireland troubles continued with terrible intensity until 1998. The most enduring civil conflict in Western Europe since the Second World War cost almost 4,000 lives, inflicted a vast toll of injuries and wrought much destruction. Based on extensive archival research and numerous interviews, this book covers the jurisdictions of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and England, providing an account of riots, escapes, strip and dirty protests and hunger strikes. It paints a picture of coming to terms with sentences, some of which lasted for two decades and more. Republicans and loyalists, male and female prisoners, officials and staff, families, supporters, clergy and politicians all played a part – and all were changed. The narrative includes some of the most remarkable events in prison history anywhere – mass breakouts, organised cell-fouling and prolonged nakedness, and hunger striking to the death; there are also accounts of the prisoners’ very effective parallel command structure. The book shows how Anglo-Irish and intra-Irish relations were profoundly affected and how the prisoners’ involvement and consent were critical to the Good Friday Agreement that ended the long war. The final part of a trilogy dealing with Irish political prisoners from 1848 to 2000 by renowned expert Seán McConville, this is an essential resource for students and scholars of Irish history and Irish political prisoners; it is also a major contribution to the study of imprisonment.