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flintlocklane's review against another edition
emotional
informative
medium-paced
4.25
“Even the living were quickly becoming folklore; I had heard my own name in song at the few dances I had attended.
Many of us could hardly see ourselves for the legends built up around us.” (317)
Many of us could hardly see ourselves for the legends built up around us.” (317)
ejh's review against another edition
5.0
If I were stranded on a desert island and/or at the DMV and I could choose only one book for all eternity, it might very well be this one. Which is so not like me because it's a.) non-fiction and b.) an autobiography.
Nonetheless, I would probably choose this book. This started off my life-long fascination with Irish history and ethnic politics, and was responsible for all of my undergraduate research.
Ernie O'Malley was a soldier in the IRA from just after the 1916 Easter Rising, through the Irish War of Independence, until the end of the Irish Civil War in 1923. He was severely injured toward the end of the civil war, and spent the last several months in captivity (some of which he spent on hunger strike, before he had recovered from his multiple gunshot wounds, and during which he was actually elected to parliament despite his own protestations). This book primarily covers the Irish War of Independence. (His second book, [b:The Singing Flame|1097115|The Singing Flame|Ernie O'Malley|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1294969984s/1097115.jpg|1083964], was published posthumously and deals with the Irish Civil War. He wrote these basically together as one long book/memoir, but only the first half was published in his lifetime.)
He starts off very briefly with his childhood (eldest son in a family of well-to-do Unionist leaning family; grew up in the west for a bit in County Mayo then moved to Dublin). He then goes straight into the events leading up to the Easter Rising (which he at first thought was stupid) and then his realization that he should be fighting for his people, not cheering those shooting against them. He abandons his medical studies at University College Dublin and joins the IRA. You could draw a very shallow and uninformed parallel to Che Guevara — (would be) physician turned guerilla warrior turned writer.
What I adore about the brief narration of his childhood is that you can feel the boy in him speaking, which is markedly different from how he is in the rest of the memoir, as a mostly solitary young man traveling throughout the countryside recruiting and training guerilla fighters. He's never completely at ease in the presence of others, and I can identify with that.
This is an honest account of events as he lived them. He doesn't make himself out to be a hero of the Easter Rising (which was the mostly failed uprising against the British that sparked the independence movement, to give you a ridiculously boiled down statement of events). He's frank about how miserable he was as he cycled through all of Ireland in his duties — the poor weather, the bad food, the backwardness of the people. He's a terrible shot. He is friends with names you've heard of even if you've never read anything about Irish history — Michael Collins — and many others of those integral to the Irish Republican movement, but any ego he has is personal and intellectual, rather than positional. He is more rightly a hero of the later civil war (during which he was on the losing side) than of the war of independence, although he took part in key events and was instrumental in organizing and training regiments outside of the capital. But it's not the obvious leadership of Michael Collins or Éamon de Valera, and he's clear about that.
There are a good number of autobiographies from this time period. I think this is the best one. While it's written from the point of view of an Irish Republican during the war, it's more or less even-handed in its retelling of events. The Irish are not perfect. O'Malley rails against them for a lot of the book. The country is not perfect. The movement is often disorganized and the recruits unmotivated and lazy.
O'Malley conveys all of this in a lyricism and ill-tempered wit (and lack of boastfulness) not found in most other accounts I've read. This is truly a breathtaking work, and it made me fall in love with a country I'd not even seen before. You begin to understand why he withstood all manner of trials (e.g. imprisonment and excruciating torture at the hands of the British) and heartrending decisions (e.g. personally ordering and overseeing the execution of three captured enemy combatants). You begin to understand why this war was something he was willing to die and kill for. Ireland is more than a place he lives — she is his home. The waters of his childhood. The language of his nanny. The songs of his soldiers. It isn't just the idea of freedom that he fights for, but the ownership of the literal land he treads.
Also, he's a really fucking stubborn guy. I can identify with that, too.
It's helpful, but not necessary, to know about Irish history from 1798 to 1924. O'Malley does a great job speaking to the common reader who might have very little or no knowledge about Irish republicanism. He recounts events chronologically, with very specific dates and occasional mentions or clippings of newspapers. While this account is primarily about his own experience and actions, he seamlessly weaves in a narration of larger events and political and popular opinion at the time. He uses the occasional word in Irish but almost always translates it for you. He occasionally ends a chapter with a soldier's song or an old folk song that they would sing (these later become part of an oral history of soldiers' experiences of the war).
There is a lot of description about the land and the people and his idle thoughts. A lot a lot a lot. I think he mentions that the land is covered in heather like every other sentence, which I didn't understand until I actually went to Ireland and, like, there actually is that much heather. (It's really pretty.) If you're reading this book for bombs and bullets, watch the movie instead. O'Malley lost a lot in the wars — he still had 3 bullets in him when he died. He didn't return to war or politics after the civil war but instead traveled throughout Europe and North America and then moved back to County Mayo (where he advised John Ford and John Wayne on the set of The Quiet Man!). His health was never fully recovered. I sometimes wonder if his writings about the land weren't as much to convince himself that he did his duty and his duty was right, as it was to convince his reader. His careful writing shows that he was very concerned about the literary quality of the book, and I believe this is why (aside from his deep love of the arts and general intellectual snobbery), especially given how bitter and personal the civil war was (on everybody, not just him).
Cillian Murphy's character in The Wind That Shakes The Barley (which won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival some years back) is based on Ernie O'Malley. The movie covers both wars, and is just a beautiful movie with very few flaws. The relationship of the brothers is the civil war in microcosm and also you will probably cry.
Tl;dr — Irish Che Guevara writes his version of the Motorcycle Diaries and it's excellent.
Also, I love this book.
Nonetheless, I would probably choose this book. This started off my life-long fascination with Irish history and ethnic politics, and was responsible for all of my undergraduate research.
Ernie O'Malley was a soldier in the IRA from just after the 1916 Easter Rising, through the Irish War of Independence, until the end of the Irish Civil War in 1923. He was severely injured toward the end of the civil war, and spent the last several months in captivity (some of which he spent on hunger strike, before he had recovered from his multiple gunshot wounds, and during which he was actually elected to parliament despite his own protestations). This book primarily covers the Irish War of Independence. (His second book, [b:The Singing Flame|1097115|The Singing Flame|Ernie O'Malley|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1294969984s/1097115.jpg|1083964], was published posthumously and deals with the Irish Civil War. He wrote these basically together as one long book/memoir, but only the first half was published in his lifetime.)
He starts off very briefly with his childhood (eldest son in a family of well-to-do Unionist leaning family; grew up in the west for a bit in County Mayo then moved to Dublin). He then goes straight into the events leading up to the Easter Rising (which he at first thought was stupid) and then his realization that he should be fighting for his people, not cheering those shooting against them. He abandons his medical studies at University College Dublin and joins the IRA. You could draw a very shallow and uninformed parallel to Che Guevara — (would be) physician turned guerilla warrior turned writer.
What I adore about the brief narration of his childhood is that you can feel the boy in him speaking, which is markedly different from how he is in the rest of the memoir, as a mostly solitary young man traveling throughout the countryside recruiting and training guerilla fighters. He's never completely at ease in the presence of others, and I can identify with that.
This is an honest account of events as he lived them. He doesn't make himself out to be a hero of the Easter Rising (which was the mostly failed uprising against the British that sparked the independence movement, to give you a ridiculously boiled down statement of events). He's frank about how miserable he was as he cycled through all of Ireland in his duties — the poor weather, the bad food, the backwardness of the people. He's a terrible shot. He is friends with names you've heard of even if you've never read anything about Irish history — Michael Collins — and many others of those integral to the Irish Republican movement, but any ego he has is personal and intellectual, rather than positional. He is more rightly a hero of the later civil war (during which he was on the losing side) than of the war of independence, although he took part in key events and was instrumental in organizing and training regiments outside of the capital. But it's not the obvious leadership of Michael Collins or Éamon de Valera, and he's clear about that.
There are a good number of autobiographies from this time period. I think this is the best one. While it's written from the point of view of an Irish Republican during the war, it's more or less even-handed in its retelling of events. The Irish are not perfect. O'Malley rails against them for a lot of the book. The country is not perfect. The movement is often disorganized and the recruits unmotivated and lazy.
O'Malley conveys all of this in a lyricism and ill-tempered wit (and lack of boastfulness) not found in most other accounts I've read. This is truly a breathtaking work, and it made me fall in love with a country I'd not even seen before. You begin to understand why he withstood all manner of trials (e.g. imprisonment and excruciating torture at the hands of the British) and heartrending decisions (e.g. personally ordering and overseeing the execution of three captured enemy combatants). You begin to understand why this war was something he was willing to die and kill for. Ireland is more than a place he lives — she is his home. The waters of his childhood. The language of his nanny. The songs of his soldiers. It isn't just the idea of freedom that he fights for, but the ownership of the literal land he treads.
The bare, once ice-covered drumlins gave the land a gloomy look when the sky was clouded or when rain-winds tufted black clouds. But sun made the cold land and the dark green glint and become lush; it shone on the crowded islands, lifting them out of the water, making the cliffs recede. A harsh land and lonely, hard to make a living from its grudging soil, cruel-hard they said it was, as hard as the hob of hell, and desolate in the winter when storms could cut them off for three weeks from the mainland. Misty, indefinite, the land changed its surface in the mind from gaiety to brooding melancholy; but it gripped hard when one knew it or had lived there. In rain or sun we loved this country; its haunting impersonal bareness, its austerity, aloofness…
Also, he's a really fucking stubborn guy. I can identify with that, too.
It's helpful, but not necessary, to know about Irish history from 1798 to 1924. O'Malley does a great job speaking to the common reader who might have very little or no knowledge about Irish republicanism. He recounts events chronologically, with very specific dates and occasional mentions or clippings of newspapers. While this account is primarily about his own experience and actions, he seamlessly weaves in a narration of larger events and political and popular opinion at the time. He uses the occasional word in Irish but almost always translates it for you. He occasionally ends a chapter with a soldier's song or an old folk song that they would sing (these later become part of an oral history of soldiers' experiences of the war).
There is a lot of description about the land and the people and his idle thoughts. A lot a lot a lot. I think he mentions that the land is covered in heather like every other sentence, which I didn't understand until I actually went to Ireland and, like, there actually is that much heather. (It's really pretty.) If you're reading this book for bombs and bullets, watch the movie instead. O'Malley lost a lot in the wars — he still had 3 bullets in him when he died. He didn't return to war or politics after the civil war but instead traveled throughout Europe and North America and then moved back to County Mayo (where he advised John Ford and John Wayne on the set of The Quiet Man!). His health was never fully recovered. I sometimes wonder if his writings about the land weren't as much to convince himself that he did his duty and his duty was right, as it was to convince his reader. His careful writing shows that he was very concerned about the literary quality of the book, and I believe this is why (aside from his deep love of the arts and general intellectual snobbery), especially given how bitter and personal the civil war was (on everybody, not just him).
Cillian Murphy's character in The Wind That Shakes The Barley (which won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival some years back) is based on Ernie O'Malley. The movie covers both wars, and is just a beautiful movie with very few flaws. The relationship of the brothers is the civil war in microcosm and also you will probably cry.
Tl;dr — Irish Che Guevara writes his version of the Motorcycle Diaries and it's excellent.
Also, I love this book.
dearbhla's review
4.0
The title of this book is taken from an old Ulster proverb It is easy to sleep on another man’s wound, and it details his life as an IRA soldier during the War of Independence between 1916 and 1921. He was a student in Dublin at the time of the 1916 Rising, and initially had no real feelings for the rebels. But as time passed he became more caught up in the Irish nationalist movement. He joined the Volunteers, later organised other companies, was taken prisoner, and eventually was appointed commander of the Second Southen, the 2nd largest division of the IRA.
This is a fascinating account of the war, showing how people from all backgrounds ended up on the same side. O’Malley’s family were supporters of Britain, like many other Dublin families they had a member in the British army; Ernie’s brother was an officer. A fact which helped him gain arms and ammunition for the Volunteers on occasion. It also shows the viciousness that is such a part of trying to put down an uprising, or insurrection. While he captured O’Malley used an assumed name, Bernard Stewart, but this didn’t save him from rough treatment and beatings. But at the same time he tells how many of the British officers were polite and fair to him. And he never shirks from telling about the violent acts he committed, such as the shooting dead of captured British officers.
“It’s a rotten job, this,” said a man with a Scotch accent. “But what can we do? I was out of work.” There was a difference in their tone of voice ; they dropped the official soldier manner. I had a glimpse of men who did not believe in what they were doing , but who would carry out their work thoroughly.
But this isn’t just an account of bloodshed and violence. As he travelled the countryside O’Malley came to appreciate the countryside, and he sets it all down in this book.
Trees thrusting upwards with added power, or bulking sideways ; they were arrogant at night, they filled the mind and they ruled the dark.
The style of writing is quite conversational. Almost as though O’Malley were telling the story out loud. And while this helps create a sense of atmosphere, it does on occasion jump in narrative and you have to stop and figure out exactly what happened. But for the most part this is a wonderfully well written account that offers a glimpse into a different mindset.
O’Malley went on to fight on the anti-treaty side during the civil war, and has another book detailing those years; The Singing Flame. I’ll have to see if I can lay my hands on it.
This is a fascinating account of the war, showing how people from all backgrounds ended up on the same side. O’Malley’s family were supporters of Britain, like many other Dublin families they had a member in the British army; Ernie’s brother was an officer. A fact which helped him gain arms and ammunition for the Volunteers on occasion. It also shows the viciousness that is such a part of trying to put down an uprising, or insurrection. While he captured O’Malley used an assumed name, Bernard Stewart, but this didn’t save him from rough treatment and beatings. But at the same time he tells how many of the British officers were polite and fair to him. And he never shirks from telling about the violent acts he committed, such as the shooting dead of captured British officers.
“It’s a rotten job, this,” said a man with a Scotch accent. “But what can we do? I was out of work.” There was a difference in their tone of voice ; they dropped the official soldier manner. I had a glimpse of men who did not believe in what they were doing , but who would carry out their work thoroughly.
But this isn’t just an account of bloodshed and violence. As he travelled the countryside O’Malley came to appreciate the countryside, and he sets it all down in this book.
Trees thrusting upwards with added power, or bulking sideways ; they were arrogant at night, they filled the mind and they ruled the dark.
The style of writing is quite conversational. Almost as though O’Malley were telling the story out loud. And while this helps create a sense of atmosphere, it does on occasion jump in narrative and you have to stop and figure out exactly what happened. But for the most part this is a wonderfully well written account that offers a glimpse into a different mindset.
O’Malley went on to fight on the anti-treaty side during the civil war, and has another book detailing those years; The Singing Flame. I’ll have to see if I can lay my hands on it.
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