This previously unpublished manuscript tells the story of Brigadier Sean Connolly, O/C of the Longford Brigade, who was fatally wounded in action on 11 March 1921 at Selton Hill, near Mohill (Co. Leitrim), by British forces during the War of Independence. Comdt-General Ernie O'Malley came across the story in interviews with Tan and Civil War survivors in the early 1950s. The account makes Connolly come alive as a person - his schooling, love of music, education, farming family background and devotion to the nationalist cause. O'Malley, who had actually organised the Irish Volunteers in parts of the area and had known many of the local leaders, gives the social setting for the IRA activities and explains the subtle roles of the IRA General HQ, of the Catholic Church and the Anglo-Irish gentry. Most memorably, it describes in detail what the fighting men actually did locally and what a local leader had to do in order to organise his men.

About the Author
Ernie O'Malley (1897-1957) was born in Castlebar, Co. Mayo. He is best known as a prominent officer with the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and took the anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War. He never completed his medical studies, but became a writer and the author of On Another Man's Wound, The Singing Flame and Raids and Rallies. EDITOR Cormac O'Malley is a legal consultant based in New York and the son of Ernie O'Malley.

Reviews
"Anything written by O'Malley is of value. The artist's eye for landscape and nature redeems this from being a military manual." Irish Times Nov 2007 "University College Dublin Press has now published over thirty 'Classics of Irish History'. These contemporary accounts by well known personalities of historical events and attitudes have an immediacy that conventional histories do not have. Introductions by modern historians provide additional historical background and, with hindsight, objectivity." Books Ireland Nov 2007 "[O'Malley] not only brings his own skill as a writer to the story but presents something bigger than a biography as he sets than a biography as he sets the war in its social context, in particular the role of the Catholic Church and the local gentry, and gives a vivid description of the activities of the IRA." Books Ireland Nov 2007 "Scholars of nineteenth-century Irish and Irish-American politics should reacquaint themselves with these classics, part of a long running and immensely useful series from University College Dublin Press. Patrick Maume has edited and written the introductions for no less than nine of the books in this series, lending them his breadth of knowledge and keen analysis that have made him one of the most learned and intellectually generous young scholars in the field." Irish Literary Supplement Fall 2008



Book Information
ISBN 9781904558897
Author Ernie O'Malley
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint University College Dublin Press
Publisher University College Dublin Press