Rebels: Voices from the Easter Rising

Description

A vivid chronicle of the first blow in the Irish revolution - by the people who were there In 1947 the Bureau of Military History was established by the Irish government to record the experiences of those who took part in the fight for independence. In 1959, the results of this research - including 1,773 'witness statements' - were placed in 83 steel boxes and locked into a strongroom in Government Buildings. Rebels, edited by one of Ireland's top young historians, brings the best of the surviving accounts of the Easter Rising together into a comprehensive, accessible and thrillingly readable telling of that much-debated insurrection, the first in a series of events that brought about Irish independence. From the witnesses' recollections of their schooling and other childhood influences to their accounts of what happened at Easter 1916, Rebels tells this famous story in a new and exhilarating way.

Fearghal McGarry is Senior Lecturer in History at Queen's University, Belfast. He is the author of Irish Politics and the Spanish Civil War, Frank Ryan, Eoin O'Duffy- A Self-Made Hero, and The Rising, a scholarly history.

A remarkable book -- Pat Kenny * RTE Radio One * The voices of Rebels are perfect for describing the fighting ... If you want to know what it was actually like, then Rebels is a good place to start -- Alan Monaghan * Sunday Business Post * Absorbing * Sunday Business Post *