Product Description

The period leading up to Ireland gaining independence remains hugely popular with readers both at home and abroad. The success of the film The Wind That Shakes the Barley has served further to ignite interest in those turbulent years. Comrades: Inside the War of Independence, a companion volume to the hugely successful Witnesses: Inside the Easter Rising, draws on official witness statements taken in the late 1940s and only released to the public in 2002. In its judicious use of the statements given by the foot-soldiers and second-line participants in the War of Independence, the book provides a unique perspective on the events of the War of Independence. Annie Ryan organises the events geographically and includes a chapter on the significant role played by women throughout the conflict. The flying columns, the ambushes, the activities of the Black and Tans and the reprisals are all vividly outlined through the voices of the protagonists, who recollect their roles, great and small, in the struggle that ultimately led to the Treaty negotiations and the establishment of the Irish Free State. Rare and unpublished images serve to illustrate the events and the book will feature an introduction by well known historian and author Dr.Diarmaid Ferriter.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #224187 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 279 pages

Review
'the book is a fascinating insight into the many intertwined aspects of the Irish revolution and its lesser known participants' --Verbal Magazine

About the Author
Annie Ryan is a retired schoolteacher who is best known for her work championing the rights of people with intellectual disabilities and mental-health problems. Her campaigning in relation to the state mental hospital in Portrane gained her national prominence, and she ran in the 1997 general election as an independent candidate on this issue. Annie.s father Tom Harris took part in the Rising and was one of the witnesses interviewed in the 1940s. Half a century on, the release of the records has enabled her to read the accounts of her own father and hundreds of others who were involved in events that would prove to be crucial to Ireland's achievement of independence.