Kilmainham Tales

Author: Joni Scanlon
ISBN: 978-1-908056-96-2
338pp + 4pp cover. 210 mm x 148 mm. Cover colour, Text black & white.
€18.50 + P&P

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This compelling and fast-paced biography delivers new insight into the life of Gearóid O’Sullivan, a central figure of the Irish independence movement, who in the early decades of the 20th Century played a key role in the rise of the Irish Republic. A Sacrifice of the Heart offers readers a fresh Irish hero to discover and a new, accessible form of biographical storytelling, which places the reader with Gearóid as he participates in all of the important events of this tumultuous period, including the 1916 Rising, the harrowing Charge of the O’Rahilly down Moore Street, the War of Independence, the Irish Civil War, and the creation of an independent Irish nation.

Learn about the friendships and rivalries that fuelled and defined an era, including Gearóid’s relationship with his mentor and revolutionary inspiration Seán Mac Diarmada, his collaboration in rebellion and

war with cousin and close friend Michael Collins, his romantic rivalry with Kevin O'Higgins, and O’Higgins, and his bitter political conflict with Eamon de Valera.

Also learn of the important relationships that shaped Gearóid’s life, including his fraught relationship with older brother Tadġ O’Sullivan, with whom he worked frantically to prevent the Irish Civil War that would ultimately divide them; and his romance with the vivacious and captivating Maud Kiernan, sister of Kitty Kiernan, who would become his wife and partner through these challenging times.

Even readers who know little about the rebellion years will come away with a greater understanding of modern Irish history as viewed through the life of this remarkable man and an appreciation of this often-overlooked founding father of the Irish nation. Includes rare photos and a specially commis- sioned map of the 1916 Rising and Moore Street Battlefield.

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Joni Scanlon is a former journalist and newspaper editor and longtime professional writer with family roots in the Skibbereen and Cobh areas of County Cork. She holds a BA degree in English and an MS degree in

Communication from Rutgers University (USA).

Visit her author page at: page https://www.facebook.com/GearoidOSullivan1916/

Finished your book in early Dec.. I enjoyed the reading, as hitherto any information on Gearóid O 'Sullivan would have to be gleaned from disparate sources. That being so because for many decades a sizeable proportion of people who established this state were written out of history or more precisely never written into history.

Great to see that the life of Gearóid is thus available in one book-and includes his young life in Coolnagráne, his role as a member of the IRB, in the 1916 Rising,Treaty negotiations ,Civil War and later political representation in Dáil Éireann.

His family and siblings tragically suffered like many other families in terms of their opposite views on the terms of the Treaty.

(Gearóid) seems to have been a person with a quite steely reserve, determined in his role as Adjutant General and seems to have been side-lined and usurped by other internal forces in 1924.

I have no doubt that he did his utmost for his country in extremely difficult times in Ireland and all credit due to you for ensuring that his contribution to the establishment of a new independent Ireland is thus recorded for posterity.

As mentioned previously anytime that I visit Glasnevin Cemetery I visit his grave.

Ar dheis Dé go bhuil a n-anam dilís.

Kilmainham Tales - Publications