BOOK REVIEWS | BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

IRISH HISTORY writing has been going through a golden age with a myriad of publications covering national and local subjects. The past year has seen a further raft of books that add greatly to our knowledge of the past and understanding of the present.
As I write this I am listening to a radio documentary featuring torrents of abuse being poured on Dublin South-West Fianna Fáil candidates Charlie O’Connor and Conor Lenihan during the Dáil general election. It is the Fianna Fáil melt-down in graphic detail as canvassers and candidates are run from doors in showers of expletives from irate voters. And to add to the fun, the candidates detest one another.
The most comprehensive and probably the most important of the books reviewed here is Destiny of the Soldiers - Fianna Fáil, Irish Republicanism and the IRA 1916-1923 (Donnacha O Beachain, Gill & Macmillan).
The author traces the republican origins of Fianna Fáil and follows their development from populism to corruption, all the time using verbalised republicanism to garner support and galvanise their members. He argues that they became an electoral machine bereft of any core values. The author could hardly have guessed the destiny that awaited Fianna Fáil on 25 February 2011 when their electoral machine followed their core values down the toilet.
The IRA - A Documentary History 1916-2005 (Brian Hanley, Gill & Macmillan) follows the destiny of the soldiers from whom Fianna Fáil departed.
This is a finely illustrated book, using many IRA documents and historic photographs to bring the story right up to date. A lot of the documents and illustrations are from the archives of this paper, showing again the huge importance of An Phoblacht as an historical record of struggle.
There is a growing wealth of published material on local and regional aspects of the struggle for freedom. One such is Revolutionary Limerick - The Republican Campaign for Independence in Limerick 1913-1921 (John O’Callaghan, Irish Academic Press).
This is complementary to the republished Limerick’s Fighting Story (Mercier Press) and provides an analytical approach. Once again, the uneven nature of the struggle from one part of the country to another is evident but so also are its common features in terms of commitment to republican goals, refuting spurious allegations of sectarianism.
The cult of Michael Collins during his lifetime and subsequently has obscured the role of IRA Tan War leader Richard Mulcahy. While this point is made repeatedly by his son in My Father, the General (Richard Mulcahy, Liberties Press) this is a disappointing book.
The author shows little understanding of Mulcahy’s republican opponents in the Civil War. He claims his father felt guilt over the deaths of nine RIC men at the Battle of Ashbourne in 1916 in which he commanded the Volunteers but there is no evidence of such feelings with regard to Mulcahy’s responsibility for the widespread executions of republican prisoners during the Civil War.
Going back a century from Mulcahy, King Dan (Patrick M Geoghegan, Gill & Macmillan), published in paperback last year, chronicles the life of Daniel O’Connell from 1775 to so-called Catholic Emancipation in 1829. It does nothing to rescue his reputation in this reviewer’s eyes.
One of the chapter headings is ‘Confronting a Culture of Defeat’ but O’Connell surely added to that culture as he led the Irish masses up the hill and down again, betraying their trust in his megalomaniac leadership. The man who, as a member of the Lawyers’ Artillery Corps in Dublin in 1803, hunted for rebels during Robert Emmet’s rising and later said Emmet “deserved to be hanged” was no ‘Liberator’.
It was the Young Irelanders who challenged O’Connell and at least made an attempt at armed resistance while the Irish were being starved by England. The Young Ireland Rebellion in Limerick (Lawrence Fenton, Mercier Press) tells an overlooked aspect of that story and adds a further chapter to Limerick’s history of nationalism.
Out of the ashes of Young Ireland arose the Fenians. The British Government devoted huge resources to combat them, including many paid informers. The most notorious of these was Thomas Beach, alias Henri Le Caron, who spied inside the Fenian ranks for over 20 years. Irish history buffs and spy novel fans alike will appreicate The Infiltrator (Peter Edwards, Maverick House).
Roger Casement made an ill-fated attempt to recruit Irish soldiers among the British Army POWs in German camps in 1914 and 1915. Among the few who followed Casement and remained true to his cause was Michael Keogh. His long-lost manuscript story of that adventure and his subsequent role in the Irish struggle was rediscovered by his family and published last year. With Casement’s Irish Brigade (compiled by Kevin Keogh, edited by Brian Maye) it is a unique historical document.
There have been a number of biographies of the 1930s IRA leader and Spanish Republican soldier Frank Ryan but Ferghal McGarry’s republished work (UCD Press) is the most contentious. It attempts to sustain the discredited argument that Ryan was a collaborator with the Nazis during his time in Germany after being handed over to the Germans by Franco whose forces had sentenced him to death. This argument has been comprehensively refuted (notably by Manus O’Riordan) since the book was first published in 2002 but it remains in the latest republished edition.
Finally, prison escape stories are always popular and this has proved the case with Donal Donnelly’s story of his break-out from Crumlin Road Jail in 1960 (Prisoner 1082, The Collins Press). The book is valuable not just for the account of the escape but also the background of Donnelly as a young nationalist in Omagh, his participation in the IRA’s Resistance Campaign and his interesting life after the escape.

All of these books can be ordered from the Sinn Féin Bookshop sales@sinnfeinbookshop or (00 353 1) 8148542