My Fight for Irish Freedom


Book Description

In 1919 a group of young men barely out of their teens, poorly armed, with no money and little training, renewed the fight, begun in 1916, to drive the British out of Ireland. Dan Breen was to become the best known of them. At first they were condemed on all sides. They became outlaws and My Fight describes graphically what life was like 'on the run,' with 'an army at one's heels and a thousand pounds on one's head'. A burning belief in their cause sustained them through many a dark and bitter day and slowly support came from the people.




Irish Freedom


Book Description

Richard English's brilliant new book, now available in paperback, is a compelling narrative history of Irish nationalism, in which events are not merely recounted but analysed. Full of rich detail, drawn from years of original research and also from the extensive specialist literature on the subject, it offers explanations of why Irish nationalists have believed and acted as they have, why their ideas and strategies have changed over time, and what effect Irish nationalism has had in shaping modern Ireland. It takes us from the Ulster Plantation to Home Rule, from the Famine of 1847 to the Hunger Strikes of the 1970s, from Parnell to Pearse, from Wolfe Tone to Gerry Adams, from the bitter struggle of the Civil War to the uneasy peace of the early twenty-first century. Is it imaginable that Ireland might – as some have suggested – be about to enter a post-nationalist period? Or will Irish nationalism remain a defining force on the island in future years? 'a courageous and successful attempt to synthesise the entire story between two covers for the neophyte and for the exhausted specialist alike' Tom Garvin, Irish Times




With the IRA in the Fight for Freedom: 1919 to the Truce


Book Description

With the IRA in the Fight for Freedom offers eyewitness and first hand accounts of Ireland's struggle for independence in various parts of the country. It presents a representative picture of the fight by the IRA for independence and of the reign of terror endured by the civilian population. Only idealism and courage on the part of the freedom fighters and the steadfast support of the Irish people could have carried such an unequal struggle through to the end.With barracks attacks, ambushes and shootings, it brings to life a conflict that is fading from the collective memory of county and country and offers a fascinating perspective on the struggle for independence, directly from the men who took part in the actions themselves.




Tom Barry


Book Description

Tom Barry: IRA Freedom Fighter chronicles the action-packed life of the Commander of the Third West Cork Flying Column, including the decisive Kilmichael ambush and the controversy regarding sectarianism during the 1920–22 period. Author, Meda Ryan, details his involvement on the fringes of the Treaty negotiations; his Republican activities during the Civil War; his engagement in the cease-fire/dump-arms deal of 1923; his term as the IRA's Chief of Staff and his participation in IRA conflicts in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and right up to his death in 1980. Includes an extensive body of primary source material, including Tom Barry's papers,




Bitter Freedom: Ireland in a Revolutionary World


Book Description

An Irish Times Best Book of the Year Longlisted for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing "Sets Ireland's post-1916 history in its global and human context, to brilliant effect." —Neil Hegarty, Irish Times Books of the Year 2015 The Irish Revolution has long been mythologized in American culture but seldom understood. Too often, the story of Irish independence and its grinding aftermath in the early part of the twentieth century has been told only within a parochial Anglo-Irish context. Now, in the critically acclaimed Bitter Freedom, Maurice Walsh, with "a novelist's eye for detailing lives in extremis" (Feargal Keane, Prospect), places revolutionary Ireland within the panorama of nationalist movements born out of World War I. Beginning with the Easter Rising of 1916, Bitter Freedom follows through from the War of Independence to the end of the post-partition civil war in 1924. Walsh renders a history of insurrection, treaty, partition, and civil war in a way that is both compelling and original. Breaking out this history from reductionist, uplifting narratives shrouded in misguided sentiment and romantic falsification, the author provides a gritty, blow-by-blow account of the conflict, from ambushes of soldiers and the swaggering brutality of the Black and Tan militias to city streets raked by sniper fire, police assassinations, and their terrible reprisals; Bitter Freedom provides a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human face of the conflict. Walsh also weaves surprising threads into the story of Irish independence such as jazz, American movies, and psychoanalysis, examining the broader cultural environment of emerging modernity in the early twentieth century, and he shows how Irish nationalism was shaped by a world brimming with revolutionary potential defined by the twin poles of Woodrow Wilson in America and Vladimir Lenin in Russia. In this “invigorating account” (Spectator), Walsh demonstrates how this national revolution, which captured worldwide attention from India to Argentina, was itself profoundly shaped by international events. Bitter Freedom is "the most vivid and dramatic account of this epoch to date" (Literary Review).




Southside Provisional


Book Description

"One of the more important, courageous and insightful books on the Troubles, all the more so because of the southern angle. I predict that it will be remembered for a long time." – Ed Moloney, journalist and author It's August 1969 and Northern Ireland is burning. Catholics are marching for civil rights and loyalist attacks have brought the British army onto the streets to quell the riots. In the middle-class suburbs of south Dublin, the political atmosphere that is transforming the North finds an unlikely convert in law student Kieran Conway. Determined to play his part, he goes to London to join the IRA. Following his training, he participates in gun fights, bank raids and intelligence-gathering sorties in England, on the Irish border and in Derry, where he encounters the young Martin McGuinness. Arrested during a British Army raid on a safe house, he is imprisoned in Crumlin Road prison, where he participates in the successful hunger strike for political status. He is transferred to Long Kesh, where he becomes adjutant to the legendary Billy McKee. On his release, he reports back to the IRA and is appointed to its general headquarters staff, where he serves during the controversial ceasefire of 1975. Profoundly disillusioned by the dysfunction within the movement, he resigns in late 1975 and returns to university, although he rejoins the IRA in 1981 before eventually leaving for good in 1993. Southside Provisional provides candid portraits of the leading IRA figures of the 1970s, alongside detailed accounts of the politics, organisation, training and operational methods of the IRA. Throughout the story, Conway's personal journey from teenage middle-class Anglophile to committed IRA activist is set against the political and military developments of the 1970s. He is not afraid to address difficult issues such as the IRA bombing campaign and its response to the loyalist killing of nationalists. Honest, fearless and frank, Southside Provisional is a fascinating first-hand account of Conway's time within Ireland's most secretive and notorious organisation.




Inside the IRA


Book Description

Would the 'real' IRA please stand up? Why, and how, the IRA splintered. The Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, the Irish National Liberation Army, the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA have all assumed responsibility for the struggle for Irish freedom over the course of the late-20th century. Yet as recently as 1969 there was only one Irish Republican Army trying to unify Ireland using physical force., Andrew Sanders explains how and why the transition from one IRA to several IRAs occurred, analysing all the dissident factions that have emerged since the outbreak of the Northern Ireland troubles. He looks at why these groups emerged, what their respective purposes are, and why, in an era of relative peace and stability in Northern Ireland, they seek to prolong the violence that cost over 3500 lives.




Families and Freedom


Book Description

Through the dramatic and moving letters and testimony of freed slaves, "Families and Freedom" tells the story of the remaking of the black family during the tumultuous years of the Civil War era. By the editors of the award-winning "Free at Last". 36 illustrations.







The Irish War of Independence and Civil War


Book Description

In the aftermath of the First World War, a political revolution took place in what was then the United Kingdom. Such upheavals were common in postwar Europe, as new states came into being and new borders were forged. What made the revolution in the UK distinctive is that it took place within one of the victor powers, rather than any of their defeated enemies. In the years after the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland, a new independence movement had emerged, and in 1918-19 the political party Sinn Féin and its paramilitary partner, the Irish Republican Army, began a political struggle and an armed uprising against British rule. By 1922 the United Kingdom has lost a very substantial portion of its territory, as the Irish Free State came into being amidst a brutal Civil War. At the same time Ireland was partitioned and a new, unionist government was established in what was now Northern Ireland. These were outcomes that nobody could have predicted before 1914. In The Irish War of Independence and Civil War, experts on the subject explore the experience and consequences of the latter phases of the Irish revolution from a wide range of perspectives.




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