Professor Paul O'Brien Livres

Battleground - The Battle for the General Post Office, 1916 is a detailed account of the actions in the area of operations in and around the General Post Office.

As the world marched to war in 1914, the army of the British Empire was secretly recovering from one of the most momentous events of its history. In the Curragh Army Camp in the rolling countryside of county Kildare, a senior British general and his officers had threatened to resign rather than deploy their forces to Ulster in response to threats from Protestant populations who were refusing to accept Home Rule. This was the so called Curragh Mutiny, which precipitated the most serious crisis of civil-military relations in modern British history. In this engaging and enjoyable new book, author Paul O'Brien explores the why and the how of those strange days, as well as putting the events in a wider context and bringing home to the modern reader just how close to civil war the British Empire stood in 1914. Subject: History, British Studies, Irish Studies, Military Studies]

In Dublin on Easter Monday 1916, Commandant Edward Daly, commanding the 1st Battalion of the Irish Volunteers, occupied the Four Courts and the surrounding area. Ensconced in a labyrinth of streets, alleyways, and tenement buildings, Daly and the Volunteers created a killing ground that would witness some of the fiercest fighting of the 1916 Rising. Surrounded and outgunned, the Volunteers held their position and were the last Battalion of the Rising to surrender. Confronted by such a determined foe, British military forces were forced to rethink their strategy in order to regain control of the second city of the Empire. Crossfire is the true story of one of the bloodiest engagements against Crown forces during the 1916 Rising. The book examines the battles that were fought in and around the Four Courts area of Dublin, and the atrocities that were uncovered on North King Street as the Rising came to an end. Delving deep into the archives and the testimony of those involved, Crossfire brings to life a desperate struggle between mismatched forces, one that forced rebels to learn new ways of fighting. This gripping military history book is in turn exciting and tragic, and it exposes the often forgotten stories of the 1916 Rising. (Series: 1916 In Focus - Vol. 1)