“In his new book, Kevin Myers manages to restory the centrality of Irish efforts in WWI to our national life.” — John Paul McCarthy, The Irish Times
In this powerful work Kevin Myers details Ireland's intimate involvement with one of the greatest conflicts in human history, the First World War, which left no Irish family untouched.
With this collection of his talks, published and unpublished essays from The Irish Times and elsewhere, Myers lays out the grounds of his research and findings in all four provinces of Ireland, as well as revisiting the main theatres of war in Europe — The Somme, Ypres, Verdun, and Gallipoli. Myers documents these bloody engagements through the lives of those involved.
In Ireland's Great War Myers realises a vital counter-narrative to the predominant readings in nationalist history, revealing the complex and divided loyalties of a nation coming of age in the early twentieth-century. This remarkable historical record pieces together the shards of Ireland's recent past and imparts a necessary understanding of the political process that saw Sinn Féin's electoral victory in 1918 and the founding of the Irish Free State.
