Historical Perspective | Stories from the scrap

Excellent and well deserved review for Raids & Rallies by Ernie O’Malley that Mercier Press have re-jacketed and released in a new edition:

Raids and Rallies , first published over a quarter of a century ago, in 1982, is perhaps the slightest of O’Malley’s revolutionary trilogy, and the striking intimacy of his two memoirs is not always present. The earlier sections of the book, where O’Malley is a participant in the ambushes he describes, are noticeably stronger and more affecting. But like the rest of his work, Raids and Rallies is deeply appealing: free from the explicit grandstanding of other IRA memoirs, it offers a compelling glimpse of the real experiences of Volunteers. It remains an essential text for the study of the Irish Revolution.

via Stories from the scrap – The Irish Times – Sat, Feb 19, 2011.