The Fall of Dublin

By Liz Gillis
Mercier Press, Dublin. Price €11.69

Reviewed by Pat Finlay
Rebel Tour of Dublin

MERCIER PRESS has added to its ‘Military History of the Irish Civil War’ series with the publication of ‘The Fall of Dublin’ by Liz Gillis, joining titles such as ‘Battle for Limerick City’ by  Pádraig Óg Ó’Ruairc and ‘Summer Campaign in Kerry’ by Tom Doyle.
Liz Gillis is from Dublin and having worked as a local history researcher in the St Nicholas of Myra now works in Kilmainham Jail as a tour guide. That another member of Kilmainham Jail’s staff should put pen to paper (following on from Niamh O’Sullivan’s wonderful books, ‘Every Dark Hour: A History of Kilmainham Jail’ and ‘Written in Stone: The Graffiti in Kilmainham Jail’ ) I’m inclined to revisit the jail in the hope some of this writing talent rubs off on me.
In addition to organising walking tours in the Dublin 8 area, Liz gave a free walking tour of The Liberties as part of this year’s Liberties Festival in June. As someone also involved in organising such tours, I was naturally interested in reading her book. I found it easy to read and fairly well balanced. Being 128 pages you are not going to get the level of detail some may wish and it will not cover all the aspects you want but it’s nonetheless well worth the read. An appendix providing a full list of the members of the Four Courts Garrison makes this in itself one for my bookshelf.