war of independence book recommendations

lizzylad84

Just wondering is there any particular books anyone could recommend in relation to the war of independence. A kind of overview of the period.

Ascendant

lizzylad84 wrote: »

Just wondering is there any particular books anyone could recommend in relation to the war of independence. A kind of overview of the period.

The Republic: the Fight for Irish Independence 1918-1923 by Charles Townshend is a good, well-researched read that always stays interesting.

A Nation and Not a Rabble: The Irish Revolution 1913-23 by Diarmaid Ferriter is likewise good, though its initial focus on the historiography of its subject may be off-putting to those not already familiar with the subject (I enjoyed it all myself, though).

BalcombeSt4

Tom Barry's "Guerrilla Days In Ireland" was the book that got me hooked on this period. It's of course biased from his viewpoint but its still a great read.

riffmongous

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

Tom Barry's "Guerrilla Days In Ireland" was the book that got me hooked on this period. It's of course biased from his viewpoint but its still a great read.

Does his book cover the Civil War period too?

Arsemageddon

riffmongous wrote: »

Does his book cover the Civil War period too?

As far as I remember it covers the Civil war and the later chapters cover the 1930s and when he was briefly recalled to serve in the Defence Forces during the Emergency.

As for book recommendations I'd go with On Another Mans Wound, The Singing Flame and Raids and Ralliesby Ernie O'Malley. The first two are among the best autobiographies I've ever read.

For overall accounts of the revolutionary period I'd second Ascendent's recommendation of Charles Townshend - a historian with the gift of also being a very good writer.

GrinningCat

would highly recommend Tom Barry's book. Biased, but heartfelt and beleiveable.

Stovepipe

Barry's book, as well as Dan Breen's book, are very self-serving. Heroic men, no doubt but Barry's vanity and ego just ruin the book for me. Lots of selective forgetting/remembering (but not confined to them, too).

Ascendant

Arsemageddon wrote: »

As far as I remember it covers the Civil war and the later chapters cover the 1930s and when he was briefly recalled to serve in the Defence Forces during the Emergency.

As far as I remember, Barry's memoir didn't go beyond the start of the Truce (although he mentions the reaction to Michael Collins' death, in a bit of a forward leap in the narrative).

As for book recommendations I'd go with On Another Mans Wound, The Singing Flame and Raids and Ralliesby Ernie O'Malley. The first two are among the best autobiographies I've ever read.

Likewise, the pair of them are very good, and O'Malley's crisp, precise prose is very readable. His writing style seems to have gotten worse, however - I'm trying to make my way through his Rising Out (about Seán Connolly of the Longford IRA) and it's like wading through molasses.

One memoir from the era that rarely gets mentioned for some reason is Todd Andrews' Dublin Made Me - unlike the macho heroics described by Breen or Barry, Andrews does admit to when he was scared or confused.

There's also a self-absorption that makes it a funny read at times. He describes meeting Frank Aiken and the two having an exchange in Irish (Aiken was surprised that a Dub like Andrews could know the language). Andrews finishes his account by telling the reader that he reckoned he knew more Irish than Aiken - I mean, who gives a monkey's???

Arsemageddon

Ascendant wrote: »

As far as I remember, Barry's memoir didn't go beyond the start of the Truce (although he mentions the reaction to Michael Collins' death, in a bit of a forward leap in the narrative).

I must have been mixing it up with Meda Ryan's biography - I read the two of them back to back.

Likewise, the pair of them are very good, and O'Malley's crisp, precise prose is very readable. His writing style seems to have gotten worse, however - I'm trying to make my way through his Rising Out (about Seán Connolly of the Longford IRA) and it's like wading through molasses.

I have been meaning to get this book for a while.

Is there anything in the introduction about how the book was written and came to be published? i.e. did Cormac O'Malley have to write/rewrite most of the book after based on his fathers manuscript or did he just work from the interview transcripts?

Ascendant

Arsemageddon wrote: »

I have been meaning to get this book for a while.

Is there anything in the introduction about how the book was written and came to be published? i.e. did Cormac O'Malley have to write/rewrite most of the book after based on his fathers manuscript or did he just work from the interview transcripts?

Yeah, quite a bit of info there from Cormac in his introduction, among the most interesting part of the overall book:

Once the publisher was lined up, I then began to edit father's original original typed manuscript. I should add that I have never found the original handwritten manuscript, but the typed version had been edited by him....[] made the minimum possible changes to the original text.

Apparently Ernie O'Malley had, between 1950-1952, interviewed over twenty of the surviving members of the Longford Volunteers who had known Connolly, though I'm almost to the end and I'm not sure I've learnt anything about Sean Connolly other than what I picked up from the back cover.

I'd be interested in a second opinion in case I'm overlooking something, but frankly the book is near unreadable. I can only surmise that O'Malley's style went downhill after finishing his memoirs or that he found it hard to write as well as he did when about someone other than himself and his own experiences.

Arsemageddon

Ascendant wrote: »

Yeah, quite a bit of info there from Cormac in his introduction, among the most interesting part of the overall book:


Apparently Ernie O'Malley had, between 1950-1952, interviewed over twenty of the surviving members of the Longford Volunteers who had known Connolly, though I'm almost to the end and I'm not sure I've learnt anything about Sean Connolly other than what I picked up from the back cover.

I'd be interested in a second opinion in case I'm overlooking something, but frankly the book is near unreadable. I can only surmise that O'Malley's style went downhill after finishing his memoirs or that he found it hard to write as well as he did when about someone other than himself and his own experiences.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I always had a suspicion that Rising Out might have been poorer than O'Malley's other books and because it was unfinished before his death. I'll try and get hold of a copy so we can compare.

Ascendant

Arsemageddon wrote: »

Thanks for the detailed reply. I always had a suspicion that Rising Out might have been poorer than O'Malley's other books and because it was unfinished before his death. I'll try and get hold of a copy so we can compare.

It's not a complete waste - it does have quite a bit of detail on the explosives used by the Longford IRA, or at least tried to use - most of the attempts described by O'Malley here were damp squibs, though that didn't stop the Longford Volunteers from trying to improve.