The Men Will Talk to Me: Clare Interviews PDF Download

Author: Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc
Publisher: Mercier Press Ltd
ISBN: 1781174199
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
This book contains interviews with members of the IRA's Mid Clare and East Clare Brigades. It includes details of the Rineen Ambush, which was, at that time, the largest and most successful operation that the IRA had conducted against the RIC. It also includes an eyewitness account of the reprisals in Miltown Malbay carried out in revenge for the ambush and a fascinating account of IRA operations in Ennis during the War of Independence, including details of Republican sympathisers within the RIC garrison who provided the IRA with information, and the activities of local loyalists who assisted the British forces. There is also an account of the 'Scariff Martyrs', who were killed by members of the RIC Auxiliary Division on Killaloe Bridge. The Civil War also features prominently, with Paddy MacMahon discussing his capture during the 'Battle of the Four Courts' in Dublin.

Author: Cormac O'Malley
Publisher: Mercier Press Ltd
ISBN: 1781170983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
County Kerry saw many of the most vicious episodes in both the War of Independence and the Civil War. Many Republican survivors of these events were reluctant to speak about their experiences, even to their own family. However, they were willing to talk to Ernie O'Malley, who was the senior surviving Republican military commander from the period of those struggles. By transcribing O'Malley's notebooks, where he recorded these interviews, Cormac O'Malley and Tim Horgan have made available previously unpublished first-hand accounts of Kerry's role in the fight for independence. The interviews provide an unrivalled insight into this important period of Irish history, including controversial incidents such as the Ballyseedy massacre, the battle at Headford Junction and executions by the Free State forces.

Author: Síobhra Aiken
Publisher: Merrion Press
ISBN: 1785371665
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
The Men Will Talk to Me is a collection of interviews conducted and recorded by famed Irish republican revolutionary Ernie O’Malley during the 1940s and 1950s. The interviews were carried out with survivors of the four Northern Divisions of the IRA, chief among them Frank Aiken, Peadar O’Donnell and Paddy McLogan, who offer fascinating insights into Ulster’s centrality in the War of Independence and the slide towards Civil War. The title refers to the implicit trust that shadows these interviews, earned through Ernie O’Malley’s reputation as a fearsome military commander in the revolutionary movement – the veterans interviewed divulge details to O’Malley which they wouldn’t have disclosed to even their closest family members. Startlingly direct, the issues covered include the mobilization of the Dundalk Volunteers for the 1916 Rising, the events of Bloody Sunday (1920), the Belfast Pogroms, and the planning of historical escapes from the Curragh and Kilkenny Gaol. The Men Will Talk to Me is an insightful and painstaking reflection of the horror of the Irish War of Independence and Civil War; in words resolute and faltering, the physical and psychological debts of the revolutionary mindset – those of hardened Pro- and Anti-Treaty veterans – are fiercely apparent.

Author: W. H. Kautt
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700632271
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Arming the Irish Revolution is an in-depth investigation of the successes and failures of the militant Irish republican efforts to arm themselves. W. H. Kautt’s comprehensive account of Irish Republican Army (IRA) arms acquisition begins with its predecessors—the Irish Volunteers and the National Volunteers—and, counterintuitively, with their rivals, the pro-union Ulster Volunteer Force. After the 1916 Rising, Kautt details the functioning of the Quartermaster General Department of the Irish Volunteer General Headquarters in Dublin and basic arms acquisition in the early days of 1918 to 1919. He then closely examines rebel efforts at weapons and ammunition manufacturing and bombmaking and reveals that the ingenuity and resources poured into manufacturing were never able to become a primary source of weapons and ammunition. As the conflict grew in intensity and expanded, the rebels encountered increasing difficulty in obtaining and maintaining supplies of weapons and ammunition since modern weapons in a protracted conflict used more ammunition than previous generations of weapons and their complexity meant that the weapons could not be clandestinely produced within Ireland. Thus, as the rebels conducted campaigns that became difficult to combat, their greatest limiting factor was that most of their weapons and ammunition had to be imported. Arming the Irish Revolution is the first work of research and analysis to explore in detail the Irish work inside Britain to establish arms centers and to conduct arms operations and trafficking. It also examines the full extent of the overseas or foreign arms trade and the arms operations of the War of Independence, including the continuance into the truce and treaty eras and up to the outbreak of the Civil War (1922–1923)—all of which reveals how the rebel leaders ran complex, maturing, and capable smuggling and manufacturing enterprises worldwide under the noses of the police, customs, intelligence, and the military for years without getting caught. Quite apart from the battlefield these groups and their activities led to political consequences, playing no small part in producing what were real concessions from Lloyd George’s government. In the last chapter Kautt offers observations and conclusions about overall successes and failures that establishes Arming the Irish Revolution as a landmark study of insurgent or revolutionary arms acquisition in both Irish and military history.

Author: Cormac O'Malley
Publisher: Irish Academic Press
ISBN: 1911024477
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
In 1922, following a decade of political ferment and much bloodshed, the Irish Free State was established, became stabilised, and developed along conservative lines. During these years the prevailing impulse was to reprove the actions of republicans who had rejected the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and many significant revolutionary voices were left unheeded. One mind, more agile than most of his contemporaries, belonged to Ernie O’Malley. It was through his vastly popular ‘clipped lyric’ memoirs, especially On Another Man’s Wound in 1936, that many of the complexities of the republican mindset were brought to light for readers worldwide. In Modern Ireland and Revolution, leading Irish and American historians and academics deliver critical essays that consider the life, writings and monumental influence of Ernie O’Malley, and the modern arts that influenced him. After his involvement in the War of Independence and the Civil War, O’Malley developed a modernist approach while living abroad for ten years; he was devoted to the arts, moved in circles that included Georgia O’Keeffe and Paul Strand, and through his probing mind counteracted any notion that republicans of his era were dull, inflexible idealists. In this fascinating collection, art and revolution coincide, enriching every preconception of the minds that supported both sides of the Treaty, and revealing untoward truths about the Irish Free State’s process of remembrance.

Author: John O'Beirne Ranelagh
Publisher: Merrion Press
ISBN: 1785374958
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
This captivating book delves into the secretive world of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and its profound impact on Ireland’s political landscape between 1914 and 1924. With the aid of new documentation, Ranelagh unravels the true influence of the oath-bound society without which the 1916 Rising might never have taken shape. For Michael Collins, the IRB was the true custodian of the Irish Republic, and the only body he pledged his loyalty to, but its legacy remains obscured by its intense secrecy. This book re-introduces the IRB as the organisation that created and furnished the IRA, influenced the result of the critical 1918 election, and changed the face of Irish history. From Éamon de Valera’s recollections of how he first learned of the Treaty to narratives from Nora Connolly O’Brien, Emmett Dalton et al, testimonies from key figures paint a vivid picture of the IRB’s inner workings and external influence. A fascinating exploration of secret societies, political manoeuvres, and personal sacrifices, The Irish Republican Brotherhood 1914–1924 casts new light on a pivotal chapter in Ireland’s quest for independence.

Author: Tomás Mac Conmara
Publisher: Mercier Press Ltd
ISBN: 1781175306
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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'The Black and Tans [raises voice] raided my aunt's house where my mother was in bed at three o'clock in the morning ... I was due to be born three days later ... she got a stroke of paralysis and lost the power of all her left side. So I never saw my mother walk ... she could get around with the aid of a chair.'Stories of the Black and Tans have been told across Ireland since the force was first released into the country in March 1920. Casting a dark and lingering shadow, they remain an evocative and emotive category of memory. For people who lived through it and those who inherited associated stories, the Black and Tans were the embodiment of British repression, violence and malevolence. The Irish War of Independence is a landmark in the chronology of Irish history and profoundly affected all areas of life. Much of that experience was never recorded.Based on Tomás Mac Conmara's almost two decades of oral history recordings, selected from over 400 interviews, as well as access to multiple private family collections, The Time of the Tans illuminates the stories of a period that has dominated the historical consciousness of Ireland. From direct testimony of 105-year-old Margaret Hoey, to the inherited tradition of Flan O'Brien, who was born in 1927, the stories pulsate with an intensity of emotion. The majority of interviewees who were recorded for this research have sadly since passed away. Now, their memories which have been preserved for posterity, breathe new life into an enduringly important period in modern Irish history.

Author: Tomás Mac Conmara
Publisher: Mercier Press Ltd
ISBN: 1781177260
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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' This incredible book is very, very important'. Damien Dempsey In November 2008, Tomás Mac Conmara sat with a 105 five-year-old woman at a nursing home in Clare. While gently moving through her memories, he asked the east Clare native; 'Do you remember the time that four lads were killed on the Bridge of Killaloe?'. Almost immediately, the woman's countenance changed to deep outward sadness. Her recollection took him back to 17th November 1920, when news of the brutal death of four men, who became known as the Scariff Martyrs, was revealed to the local community. Late the previous night, on the bridge of Killaloe they were shot by British Forces, who claimed they had attempted to escape. Locals insisted they were murdered. A story remembered for 100 years is now fully told. This incident presents a remarkable confluence of dimensions. The young rebels committed to a cause. Their betrayal by a spy, their torture and evident refusal to betray comrades, the loneliness and liminal nature of their site of death on a bridge. The withholding of their dead bodies and their collective burial. All these dimensions bequeath a moment which carries an enduring quality that has reverberated across the generations and continues to strike a deep chord within the local landscape of memory in East Clare and beyond.

Author: Ernie O'Malley
Publisher: Mercier PressLtd
ISBN: 9781781170625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
For the first time in published form 'The Men Will Talk to Me: Galway Interviews' chronicles the experiences of the Galway-based survivors of the War of Independence and the Civil War, recorded in the hand-written notebooks of Ernie O'Malley. Many of the individuals would not talk about their experiences, even to their own families, but were willing to talk to Commandant General O'Malley, the senior surviving Republican military commander, who took on the task of preserving the memories of these participants. The resulting O'Malley notebooks provide an unrivaled insight into this important period of Irish history, including the attack on Clifden and life 'on the run' for the Galway IRA volunteers.

Author: Cormac O'Malley
Publisher: Mercier Press Ltd
ISBN: 1781172714
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
In the 1940s and 1950s Ernie O'Malley travelled around Ireland interviewing survivors of Ireland's struggle for Independence. These interviews, now being made available to the public for the first, time give a fascinating insight into the times and the people who fought. Many of those who were interviewed were unwilling to talk – even to their own families – about their experience, but because O'Malley was such a well-respected figure they consented to be interviewed by him. This book includes accounts of activities in many parts of Mayo and neighbouring parts of Roscommon and Sligo and most of those interviewed also fought against the Free State in the civil war. The key events described took place in the early months of 1921 in places such as Kilmeena, Tourmakeady and Carrowkennedy.