Bøger af Terence Kearey

On a summer's day on the Somme in 1916, one brave battalion lost half its men to enemy fire in an hour. What went wrong? Martha Kearey dressed in black for the rest of her life in memory of the four sons she lost on that day in the First World War, proudly wearing each of their medals in turn on Sundays. Nearly a century on, her grandson Terence has set out to do justice to the memory of his uncles and their colleagues with a full account of the role of their Battalion, the Kensingtons, on the Somme in the summer of 1916. The Kensingtons, guardians of the right flank on the battlefront at Gommecourt, were ordered to march on the enemy without proper preparation in a move later condemned as foolhardy and suicidal. That summer's day, cut to pieces by enemy artillery, they lost half their men in less than an hour. Kearey sets out a candid account of the action, examining why this tragic and unnecessary slaughter was allowed to happen.

Thomas Kearey, born in Dublin in 1791, left home in 1813 as a young man of 22 trained as a smelter in gold and silver. He set out to seek his fortune in London, knowing he might never see his homeland or his family again. Thanks to his determination, charm and intelligence, he found success, security and love, and founded a dynasty. This is the true story of his life and times, researched, reconstructed and colourfully told two centuries later by his greatgreat-grandson Terence Kearey, a keen historian.

Terence Kearey has long harboured a wish to trace his family connections with his homeland back as far as possible in time. As a keen historian he has devoted thousands of hours to researching and recording the history of the Kearey name, all the way back to the 10th century AD, when his ancestors bore the name Ciardha. In this book he traces a thousand years of history, from the time when Ireland was divided into kingdoms. With the aid of DNA analysis he delves even further back, to the earliest occupation of Ireland by his Stone Age ancestors.