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Since the 1970s people have been murdering their neighbours in Northern Ireland. This book is the true account of the small-town violence and terror which lies behind the headlines.
For nearly thirty years, people have been murdering their neighbours in Northern Ireland. If you want to understand how and why they go about it, read this book. Here is political violence in all its banality and tragedy.
An account of how an angry young man can cross the line that divides theoretical support for violence to a state of killing rage, in which the murder of neighbours becomes thinkable. The book presents the brutality and waste caused by the IRA's unwinnable campaign, and of its human consequences.
Examining the years 1917-22, this biography traces the parallel careers and political lives of Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, two leaders of the Irish revolution who were very different in temperament and style. It also considers the legacy of Collins on de Valera's later political life.
Éamon de Valera is the most remarkable man in the history of modern Ireland. Much as Churchill personified British resistance to Hitler and de Gaulle personified the freedom of France, de Valera personified Irish independence. From his emergence in the aftermath of the 1916 rebellion as the republican leader, he bestrode Irish politics like a colossus for over fifty years. On the eve of the centenary of the Irish revolution, one of Ireland's most eminent historians explains why Eamon de Valera was such a divisive figure that he has never until now received the recognition he deserves. This biography reconciles an acknowledgement of de Valera's catastrophic failure in 1921-22, when his petulant rejection of the Anglo-Irish Treaty shaped the dimensions of a bloody civil war, with an appreciation of his subsequent greatness as the statesman who single-handedly severed the ties with Britain and defined nationalist Ireland's sense of itself.
Eamon de Valera has often been characterised as a stern, un-bending, devious and divisive Irish politician. Diarmuid Ferriter challenges this caricature using letters, documents and photographs. This book chronicles the extraordinary career of the most significant politician of modern Irish history.
On 14 April 1922 a group of 200 anti-Treaty IRA men occupied the Four Courts in Dublin in defiance of the Provisional Government. Michael Collins, who wanted to avoid civil war at all costs, did not attack them until June 1922, when British pressure forced his hand. This led to the Irish Civil War as fighting broke out in Dublin between the anti-Treaty IRA and the Provisional Government's troops. Under Collins' supervision, the Free State rapidly took control of the capital. In 'Michael Collins and the Civil War', Ryle Dwyer sheds new light on Collins' role in the Civil War, showing how in the weeks and months leading to the campaign he secretly persisted with guerrilla tactics in border areas. This involved not only assassination but also kidnapping and hostage taking. In confronting those tactics on behalf of the British, for instance, Winston Churchill engaged in similar behaviour, including killing and hostage-taking. But until now much of this has conveniently been swept under the carpet of history.
When President of the Irish Republic Michael Collins signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, he remarked to Lord Birkenhead, 'I may have signed my actual death warrant.' And in August 1922 during the Irish Civil War, that prophecy came true - Collins was shot and killed by a fellow Irishman in a shocking political assassination. So ended the life of the greatest of all Irish nationalists, but his visions and legacy lived on. This authorative and comprehensive biography presents the life of a man who became a legend in his own lifetime, whose idealistic vigour and determination were matched only by his political realism and supreme organisational abilities. Coogan's biography provides a fascinating insight into a great political leader, whilst vividly portraying the political unrest in a divided Ireland, that can help to shape our understanding of Ireland's recent tumultuous socio-political history.
Traces the life of the man who negotiated for Irish independence and describes the political background of the times. Bibliog.
The stories of the leading figures of the Irish revolution - Michael Collins, Eamon de Valera, and guerrillas like Tom Barry and Ernie O’Malley - have been well told. But many other senior-ranking activists were equally committed. However, their experience remains obscure to most people. What was it like to try to launch the Easter Rising in a provincial town outside Dublin? What happened to the Volunteers imprisoned after the rising in maximum security prisons? How did counties such as Cavan and Wexford experience the revolution? This look at the life of Peter Paul Galligan throws light on these issues. Peter Paul Galligan joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1910 and the Irish Volu...