A 'sensational affair.. carried out with great audacity' - New York Times. An astonishing act of piracy, the capture of the British war ship, the Upnor changed the course of Ireland's Civil War. Flawless in its planning and execution, while Winston Churchill remarked on Irish 'genius for conspiracy', a furious Michael Collins accused the British of deliberately arming his enemies. Indeed, it's highly likely that the bullet that killed him originated in the Upnor....

Step into the tumultuous world of 1922 Ireland, a nation on the brink of civil war. In this thrilling tale of daring and cunning, a band of IRA pirates set their sights on what could be the greatest heist of all time.As the IRA splits into two opposing factions, an audacious plan takes place in Cork. The target? A Royal Navy ship laden with 120 tonnes of arms and ammunition. The stakes? The very future of Ireland itself.Follow the exploits of colourful characters like Sean ...

The career of the legendary British battlecruiser is vividly recounted from its commissioning to its tragic end in this naval history.The HMS Hood was the glory of the Royal Navy. In The End of Glory, historian Bruce Taylor combines in-depth research and thrilling narrative to tell its story. For twenty years Hood symbolized the Royal Navy during the twilight years of the British Empire. Yet in 1941, it was destroyed in seconds by the batt...

First published in 1949, 'Guerilla Days in Ireland' is an extraordinary story of the Irish War of Independence and the fight between two unequal forces, which ended in the withdrawal of the British from twenty-six counties. Seven weeks before the Truce of July 1921, the British presence in County Cork consisted of a total of over 12,500 men. Against these British forces stood the Irish Republican Army whose flying columns never exceeded 310 riflemen in the whole of the county. These flying...

?Ireland's War of Independence generated a wealth of published material but very little from a British perspective. Yet many British servicemen left accounts of their time in Ireland from 1918 to 1921. They describe military operations, the IRA, the Irish, the actions of their own forces, morale and relationships with local communities. There is Brigadier Vinden's strange tale of a drinking session with Michael Collins and humour in the sending of Gaelic-speaking Highlanders into a public ...

A fascinating insight into Breaker Morant and the question of morality and human life. The question of "The Breaker's" innocence is still being fiercely debated more than a century after Lieutenant Harry Morant and Lieutenant Peter Handcock were shot on a lonely veldt outside Pretoria at dawn on 27 February, 1902, by a British military firing squad. Shoot Straight, You Bastards! is a universal account of greed, ambition and the power of the political machine that crushes anyone wh...

In 1919 a group of young men barely out of their teens, poorly armed, with no money and little training, renewed the fight, begun in 1916, to drive the British out of Ireland. Dan Breen was to become the best known of them. At first they were condemed on all sides. They became outlaws and My Fight describes graphically what life was like 'on the run,' with 'an army at one's heels and a thousand pounds on one's head'. A burning belief in their cause sustained them through many a dark and bi...

With the IRA in the Fight for Freedom offers eyewitness and first hand accounts of Ireland's struggle for independence in various parts of the country. It presents a representative picture of the fight by the IRA for independence and of the reign of terror endured by the civilian population. Only idealism and courage on the part of the freedom fighters and the steadfast support of the Irish people could have carried such an unequal struggle through to the end.With barracks attacks, ambushe...

On Easter Monday, between 1,000 and 1,500 Irish Volunteers and members of the Irish Citizen Army seized the General Post Office and other key locations in Dublin. The intention of their leaders, including Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, was to end British rule in Ireland and establish an independent thirty-two county Irish republic. For a week battle raged in the Irish capital until the Rising collapsed. The rebel leaders were executed soon afterwards, though in death t...

Even those who know a great deal about the Easter Rising may not know that there were temporary ceasefires in the St Stephen's Green area, to allow the park attendants to feed the Green's ducks. Few know that the first shots of the rising were actually fired near Portlaoise and not in Dublin or indeed that both sides issued receipts: the rebels for food, the British for handcuffs. It features excerpts from a previously unpublished diary written by a member of the Jacob's garrison; the stor...

When the Free State army captured Limerick city in mid-July 1922, Republican forces retreated south towards Cork and made their next determined stand around Kilmallock. This area barred the way to the heartland of the 'Munster Republic'. In one of the largest and most intense battles of the Irish Civil War, Free State and Republican troops fought for possession of Kilmallock, Bruree and Bruff, with the latter two towns repeatedly changing hands. The eventual Free State occupation of Kilmal...

In this new book, Liam Ó Duibhir charts the struggle for independence, both militarily and politically, in Donegal from before the events of Easter 1916 until the truce in 1921.Donegal has long been seen as one of the quietest counties during the War of Independence but this reputation belies an intriguing story of how republican sentiment grew in the county. From the first mention of Sinn Féin, through the conscription crisis and the success of the 1918 elections, Ó Duibhir charts the ris...