The Irish Revolution has long been mythologized in American culture
but seldom understood. Too often, the story of Irish independence and
its grinding aftermath in the early part of the twentieth century has
been told only within a parochial Anglo-Irish context. Now, in the
critically acclaimed Bitter Freedom, Maurice Walsh, with a
novelist's eye for detailing lives in extremis (Feargal Keane,
Prospect), places revolutionary Ireland within the panorama of
nationalist movements born out of World War I.
Beginning with the
Easter Rising of 1916, Bitter Freedom follows through from the
War of Independence to the end of the post-partition civil war in
1924. Walsh renders a history of insurrection, treaty, partition, and
civil war in a way that is both compelling and original. Breaking out
this history from reductionist, uplifting narratives shrouded in
misguided sentiment and romantic falsification, the author provides a
gritty, blow-by-blow account of the conflict, from ambushes of
soldiers and the swaggering brutality of the Black and Tan militias
to city streets raked by sniper fire, police assassinations, and
their terrible reprisals; Bitter Freedom provides a
kaleidoscopic portrait of the human face of the conflict. Walsh also
weaves surprising threads into the story of Irish independence such
as jazz, American movies, and psychoanalysis, examining the broader
cultural environment of emerging modernity in the early twentieth
century, and he shows how Irish nationalism was shaped by a world
brimming with revolutionary potential defined by the twin poles of
Woodrow Wilson in America and Vladimir Lenin in Russia.
In this
"invigorating account" (Spectator), Walsh demonstrates how
this national revolution, which captured worldwide attention from
India to Argentina, was itself profoundly shaped by international
events. Bitter Freedom is the most vivid and dramatic account
of this epoch to date (Literary Review).