Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #270663 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Customer Reviews

Not really very good.
This is a bit of a disappointment.

Originally written in the early 1960s this was re-released some 5 years ago. Unfortunately it remains almost a standard product of the Irish Republican genre which was born in the early 1920s and sadly lingers on to this day.

As ever the activities of the Saint-Genius Michael Collins dominate as he single handedly defeats the dark forces of the British Empire. The nascent IRA, as always, is filled with steely eyed yet pious super-patriots, consumed with religious ardour - something that presumably did not clash with the shooting of veterinarians in their beds. Still, ho hum, just another murderous Brit anyway who probably would have spent his time murdering poor Catholc babies if he hadn't actually been in Dublin to buy racehorses.

The Brits are mainly caricatures and the effects of Bloody Sunday are overdone. The 'Cairo Gang' is never really tied down, nor is any evidence produced for the many murders of innocent IRA men for which they are credited. As an event which 'won the war' for St Michael, the massacre availed him surprisingly little at the Treaty Negotiations.

Probably the best part is the Auxiliary's Story which is the longest account of it's type I have encountered. His coverage of the Macroom ambush is especially interesting and contrasts well with the notoriously fickle testimony of Tom Barry. The fact that this chapter is included in the book does say something for Mr Gleeson's objectivity.

Oddly, Mr Gleeson's grasp of Irish history is pretty sketchy and that of Mr McEvoy (who provides the foreword and who I can only presume is some sort of mental defective) is even worse.

On balance this has been done much better by later works (T. Ryle Dwyer for one). Mainly this is because this book is a product of its times although it is part of a canon that remains remarkably resilient given its scholastic shortcomings (see 'Rebels' for a book that has no excuse for being written).

Personally I would say the Auxiliary's story is worth a look. The rest is just a vaguely irritating Republican gloss on what was, effectively, the rather sordid murder of a lot of unarmed men in their beds. Unless you are after a hopelessly simplistic interpretation of the Troubles I would save your money and go see a Disney film instead.