Bøger udgivet af MERCIER PRESS

The Kildare IRA was heavily outnumbered by crown forces and had neither the manpower nor weaponry to seriously challenge them. With about 300 activists in County Kildare, and only about a third of them ready to take to the field at one time, they faced nearly 6,000 troops and hundreds of police and Black and Tans. However, the county was an important axis for intelligence gathering and communications to the south and west, and it is here Kildare made its greatest impact. The open flat plains of Kildare militated against ambushes, while its proximity to the capital also inhibited the Kildare Volunteers. Nevertheless there was a strong revolutionary element in the county. The book looks at the group of Volunteers who followed the railway track into Dublin to partake in the 1916 Rising and details attacks at Greenhills, Maynooth and Barrowhouse. The author also examines the Rath internment camp in the Curragh, reaction in the county to the Truce and Treaty, and the eventual split in the republican movement in the lead up to civil war.This comprehensive account will be a valuable addition to literature on this formative period in Ireland's history.

From Easter 1916 until the bitter end of the Civil War, Kerry was embroiled in bloody conflict. Now, for the first time in published form, many of the county's main participants in the struggle tell their own stories. These were narrated to Ernie O'Malley in the late 1940s and early 1950s. During their lifetimes, these men were reluctant to recount their exploits, even to their own families, but were willing to speak to Ernie O'Malley, a respected and legendary IRA leader during the War of Independence and Civil War.Working from his father's notebooks, Cormac O'Malley, with local Kerry historian, Tim Horgan, has produced the only comprehensive first hand accounts of the War of Independence and the Civil War in Kerry. Many of the bloody and controversial incidents of the period are brought vividly to life through the words of the participants. The extensive footnotes enrich the original interview text and the work is complemented by a photographic section which includes previously unpublished photographs of the time.

The Civil War left a more violent mark on Kildare than the War of Independence had. As a garrison county with military barracks situated on the main Cork and Limerick roads in Naas, Newbridge, the Curragh and Kildare town, it had a low level of republican military activity. By the Truce of 1921, however, Kildare's two IRA battalions had evolved into quite efficient military units. Forty-three people in or from Co. Kildare died during 1922-3, while only fifteen people died in the 1916-21 period as a result of hostilities. Kildare had one of the highest numbers of IRA volunteers executed during the war - eight - and the largest single execution - in December 1922 when seven men from the Rathbride column were executed at the Curragh. Fifteen National Army soldiers were killed in ambushes in the county, yet only three RIC men died. Two internment camps - Tintown and Newbridge - housed nearly 3,000 prisoners in 1922-3, while the Rath Camp held 1,200. The internment camps were the scene of mass hunger strikes and mass jail-breaks and the escape from Newbridge is the biggest in republican prison folklore, with 112 prisoners getting away. Includes the full untold story of the Rathbride column when 7 out of 10 arrested were executed in 1922 while other prisoners in Kerry caught in the same circumstances were reprieved.¿

The Gifford sisters, Grace (later Plunkett), Muriel (later MacDonagh), Nellie (later Donnelly), and Sydney (later Czira) were key figures in the Republican struggle during the 1916 period. Grace Gifford is one of the tragic stories of the 1916 Easter Rising, but the poignancy of her brief marriage to the executed rebel leader Joseph Mary Plunkett has tended to overshadow her family's deep commitment to the cause of the Irish Republic. Grace was the second youngest of twelve children. Despite coming from a strongly unionist background and being raised in the Protestant faith, the Gifford sisters became heavily involved with the republican Irish movement and with the fight for Irish freedom. Both in Ireland and in America they supported the republican cause, despite the heartache and difficulties this caused them. This fascinating book tells the stories of the four sisters in the context of their time, with a light touch that belies the depth of detail involved.

Major Haig ordered them to 'prepare to fire', whereupon they the fired indiscriminately, point blank, at the people in the street. Four people were killed and thirty-seven wounded. All Ireland seethed with indignation . . . This new edition of Dublin's Fighting Story with an introduction by Diarmaid Ferriter features stories and reports from every aspect of the War of Independence, from the formation of the Fianna Éireann and the Volunteers, through the Great Dublin Strike and Lock-out in 1913 and the 1916 Rising to the death of Seán Treacy in a bloody street shoot-out, the triumph and tragedy of Bloody Sunday and the burning of the Customs House. Dublin's Fighting Story offers the perspective of the eye witnesses and fighting men themselves to the struggle for independence in Dublin.

One man's journey through alcoholism, and what helped him recover.During his drinking days Paul Campbell let down and hurt many people - his family and loved ones in particular. Alcoholism is known as the family illness and it truly is. Before alcoholism kills, it usually destroys the lives of loved ones, the ones ironically that care about the alcoholic the most. Much of this book is written with these people in mind. To Paul Campbell's mind, family members are usually the silent victims of alcoholism. This book is not written by an academic or a doctor. It doesn't have carefully drawn charts or squiggly diagrams describing a variety of personalities and behavior patterns. This book is written by someone who had everything, who lost everything, who went through the living hell of chronic alcoholism and the tough times of recovery. Ultimately though, he is proof that there is hope for everyone - even the most crazy, out-of-control, self-destructive alcoholic. Paul Campbell discovered that giving up drink was only half the battle. Living and enjoying life is the real challenge.Paul Campbell is an Addiction Counsellor living in Ireland. He writes regular columns on alcoholism for the Irish press.

The spellbinding story of the most famous abortionist of the 1940s and 1950s, Mamie Cadden. Mamie Cadden was born in the US of Co. Mayo parents who returned to Ireland soon after her birth. Mamie qualified as a midwife from the National Maternity Hospital in 1925 and started work in one of Dublin's many nursing homes. Soon after she established her own home, St. Maelruin's, in Rathmines. Mamie became famous in Dublin for her fast lifestyle, blonde hair, MG sportscar and friendship with students, bohemians and other independent women. However, it all came to a temporary end in 1939 when she was sentenced to jail for abandoning a child she had contracted to place in a home. When she emerged in 1940 she began to concentrate on the busy abortion services in Dublin, a service which would eventually land her in jail for the rest of her life...

What was a mark? Livery of seisin? Letters patent? This remarkable Dictionary of Irish Local History will be able to tell you. Entries are fully cross-referenced and come replete with full biographical paraphernalia to enable readers to engage in further reading. Primarily intended for local historians, but the interconnectedness of the local and wider worlds is recognised by the inclusion of a range of entries relating to national institutions, religion, archaeology, education, land issues, lay associations and political movements. It is an indispensable work, which will enable local historians to make better sense of the evidence for the past.