"Oppression, discrimination, and injustice occur worldwide. We must fight them on a worldwide basis", Devlin McAliskey says in this 1982 speech. She describes how the U.S. civil rights movement influenced fighters for self-determination in Ireland, and explains how British imperialism's wars abroad are an extension of its attacks against workers in Britain.
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
Described by Padraig Pearse as the “greatest of the Fenians”, John Devoy was born before the Famine and lived to see the Irish tricolour flying from Dublin Castle. The descendent of a rebel family, he was an avowed Fenian who went into exile in New York in 1871. Over the next half-century he was the most-prominent leader of the Irish-American nationalist movement. Every Irish leader from Parnell to Pearse sought his counsel. He organised a dramatic rescue of Fenian prisoners from Australia, rallied Irish America behind the Land War, served as a middle man between the Easter rebels and the German government, and helped move Irish-American opinion in favour of the Treaty. When he died in 1928, Devoy was accorded a state funeral and a hero’s burial in Ireland. This new revised edition of the acclaimed biography of this overlooked architect of the Irish independence movement is also the story of Ireland, and of Irish-America, from the Famine to Freedom, examining the extraordinary cloak-and-dagger planning of the Easter Rising and the critical role of America in its outcome. “The Devoy story, in Terry Golway’s hands, combines wide scholarship and adventure: it reads like a novel. Get a comfortable chair when you read this book: you won’t be able to put it down.” – Frank McCourt “Terry Golway tells the story of this exceptional man with affection and deft narrative sense…this book will charm and enlighten readers.” – Thomas Keneally
My fight for Irish freedom, a classical book, has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.
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).
A gripping narrative of the most critical years in modern Ireland's history, from Charles Townshend The protracted, terrible fight for independence pitted the Irish against the British and the Irish against other Irish. It was both a physical battle of shocking violence against a regime increasingly seen as alien and unacceptable and an intellectual battle for a new sort of country. The damage done, the betrayals and grim compromises put the new nation into a state of trauma for at least a generation, but at a nearly unacceptable cost the struggle ended: a new republic was born. Charles Townshend's Easter 1916 opened up the astonishing events around the Rising for a new generation and in The Republic he deals, with the same unflinchingly wish to get to the truth behind the legend, with the most critical years in Ireland's history. There has been a great temptation to view these years through the prisms of martyrology and good-and-evil. The picture painted by Townshend is far more nuanced and sceptical - but also never loses sight of the ordinary forms of heroism performed by Irish men and women trapped in extraordinary times. Reviews: 'Electric ... [a] magisterial and essential book' Irish Times About the author: Charles Townshend is the author of the highly praised Easter 1916:The Irish Rebellion. His other books include The British Campaigns in Ireland, 1919-21 and When God Made Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Making of Iraq, 1914-21.
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.
This book tells the story of Ireland's struggle for freedom which was waged by political and financial means in the United States as well as by force of arms and politics in Ireland. It gives the whole background of the generations of Irish revolt and the powerful roles played in America by the Clan-na-Gael and other groups, which eventually led to the Easter Week Rebellion of 1916. -- Publisher description.
"The Irish War of Independence, January 1919 to July 1921, constituted the final stages of the Irish revolution. It went hand in hand with the collapse of British administration in Ireland. The military conflict consisted of sporadic, localised but vicious guerrilla fighting that was paralleled by the efforts of the Dail Government to achieve an independent Irish Republic and the partitioning of the country by the Government of Ireland Act."--Book jacket.
