Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #106340 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 198 pages

Synopsis
The book is a study of the shooting of suspected civilian informers by the Cork city IRA in 1920-1921. During a one-year period, at least twenty-four Cork civilians died at the hands of the IRA, including a two-week span that saw eight civilians shot. IRA sources claim some of the civilians were members of an Anti-Sinn Fein Society, a pro-British intelligence network operating in the city. The book analyses the existence of such a network, alleged IRA persecution of ex-soldiers, and the strength of the IRA intelligence efforts in Cork city. It places these trends in the context of both the British reprisal campaign in Cork city, and the IRA's guerrilla struggle. The book contains significant original research that focuses on events in Cork city in 1920-1921. Chapters on the British reprisal campaign, the IRA intelligence network, and the trends of the conflict, provide unique evidence and conclusions regarding the situation in Cork city, which have not been published in any other work and directly contradicts some conclusions made in Peter Hart's The IRA and its Enemies.

Customer Reviews

Compelling
This history of the spy wars in Cork City during 1919-1921 explains the IRA's campaign against civilian informers working for British forces during the Irish War of Independence. It puts a human face on a hidden but compelling aspect of the conflict. The book provides rare insight into the role of information-gathering in a guerrilla war, which seems especially relevant in the wake of the current Iraq War.

Spies, Informers and the 'Anti Sinn Fein Society': The Intelligence War in Cork City 1919-1921
When I read the foreword to Spies Informers and the "Anti-Sinn Fein Society" by Prof. Eunan O'Halpin it struck me as rather sparing in its praise and I wondered if the professor was guilty of that scholarly trait of not wishing to appear too effusive or enthusiastic towards an academic text. Sadly after reading this extended thesis I suspect this is not the case, I fear this is just a badly written book and the professor knows it.

As a reference tool for names, dates and remembered first hand accounts I would agree that this book is a useful asset for anyone wishing to study history, this is a well referenced work.

However this book should be part of a wider body of research as I think it contains too many assumptions to be considered of any real worth, the main one being the author's opinion that a lack of overt support for the Crown forces within a society implies tacit support for the Dáil Éireann and the Cork IRA.

Very little of the book is spent on the fear instilled into the local population by the IRA. Having spent most of my adult life living in Northern Ireland both before and after the ceasefire in both nationalist and unionist areas I can say with some authority, as can anyone who has lived in this country, that often the local population will say and do nothing because they fear the wrath and retribution of paramilitary forces.

If the reader approaches the text with this in mind many of Borgonovo's assumptions are questionable. Couple this with the fact that in his own conclusions the author acknowledges his theories cannot be accurate, that he can prove nothing; one has to wonder, what is the point of this book?

An Excellent Study Of War And Collusion During The Irish War Of Independence
John Borgonovo has become one of the leading historians on Ireland's War of Independence at the most local and regional of levels, with a particular focus on the province of Munster, and this revealing new study casts light part of the role played by the elements in the Southern Unionist population in Ireland, in particular through active collaboration with the British Occupation Forces the the height of the conflict.
Many tens of thousands of Southern Unionists were intimately tied up in the British Occupation, upon which indeed their power and priviliege for centuries had rested (as with their Northern cohorts and by which many felt betrayed), and the role of the Unionists communities in the south, in Dublin, Cork, etc, is only now coming into focus.

Borgonovo's book will be a revelation for many and is sure to answer questions for many in relation to the activities of the broad Unionist community in "southern" Ireland during the 1916-1923 Revolution.

Loyalist terror gangs were not reserved to Belfast, Derry or Armagh and were an integral - if underwritten - part of the conflict across the country.

We need more studies like this.