For the Cause of Liberty: A Thousand Years of Ireland's Heroes [Paperback]

Terry Golway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2001

Ireland's struggle for freedom reaches back much further into the annals of history than most of us can imagine. Since the eleventh century, when legendary king Brian Boru united the chieftains of Ireland to resist Viking invasion, countless individual leaders have fought to preserve and protect Ireland's political and cul-tural autonomy. In a chronicle of unprecedented breadth and authority, For the Cause of Liberty tells the stories of these heroes -- including both men and women, Catholics and Protestants -- who enabled the Irish to free themselves from the yoke of colonial oppression.

Journalist Terry Golway reconstructs the entire thousand-year history of Irish nationalism, covering each benchmark event in Ireland's political evolution and presenting a vivid, epic tale of both the famous and unsung patriots who changed the course of Ireland's history. Among these are Wolfe Tone, a leader of the 1798 rebellion who cut his own throat rather than submit to a hangman; Kevin Barry, executed at age eighteen rather than turn informer on the eve of independence in 1921; and Bobby Sands, an IRA militant who died on a hunger strike in 1981, calling international attention to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

The engaging and admirable story of how the Irish have saved themselves, For the Cause of Liberty is a peerless work of scholarship, and it offers a fresh context for the ongoing discussion of Ireland's political future.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For more than 800 years, Ireland has had to define itself politically in relation to its next-door neighbor and sometime occupier, England. That fact has fueled generations of Irish revolutionary activity--and given rise to countless heroes, ordinary men and women who suffered and died in the cause of freedom.

One person's hero is, of course, another's criminal, and Irish American journalist Terry Golway takes pains not to paint too saintly a portrait of men such as Daniel O'Connell, a Catholic emancipator who loathed rebellion but loathed oppression even more; Michael Collins, the soldier and politician who helped bring about the modern Irish state; Gusty Spence, the Ulster Protestant militant who, while in prison, became a convert to the cause of nonsectarian peacebuilding; and Gerry Adams, who helped bring militant Catholics into negotiations with their Protestant counterparts and the English government. While striving for balance, For the Cause of Liberty takes an overwhelmingly pro-Irish stand vis-à-vis England, which may not please some readers, as he charts the lives and accomplishments of dozens of historical figures major and minor. Those heroes of old may soon belong to a fading past; as Golway notes, approvingly, Northern Ireland seems well along on its path to peace, while the Republic is rapidly becoming "post-nationalist," with one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe, "outpacing Britain and even Germany." His vivid history reminds readers well, however, of the cost of that newfound wealth and harmony. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, Golway, an historian (Irish Rebel: John Devoy and America's Fight for Ireland's Freedom, etc.) and political columnist at the New York Observer, offers an essential short course in Irish history, spanning 1,000 years and encompassing events familiar to every Irish high school student but not well-known outside the Emerald Isle. Golway crafts a dramatic tale, placing various episodes in a broad context that will enlighten an audience familiar with, say, the founding of Ireland's Abbey Theatre but not with the theater's role in Irish revolution. The focus is on the people who risked life and limb in defense of their homeland. Readers will meet the full spectrum of well-known heroes, such as Wolfe Tone, Daniel O'Connel and Michael Collins. They will also be introduced to a bevy of courageous unknowns, including the late 18th century's Father Murphy of Boolavogue, who initially urged rebellious parishioners to disarm but then, when faced with British violence, became a rebel leader, telling his followers it would be better "to die like men than to be butchered like dogs in the ditches." Ireland's nationalist heroes include a significant number of women, whose tales are recounted here in admirable terms. Those who are familiar with modern Irish history may question the inclusion of certain persons in this gallery; politician Gerry Adams, for instance, remains a controversial figure, and the former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith, may strike some as decidedly unheroic. Yet, on the whole, this is an energetic and deeply informative work whose author makes a strong plea for a new type of heroism dedicated to preserving peace in Ireland. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684855577
• ISBN-13: 978-0684855578
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,673,612 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book To Get Your Irish Up, March 22, 2000

By 

Dermot McEvoy (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: For the Cause of Liberty: A Thousand Years of Ireland's Heroes (Hardcover)

One of the problems with Irish history is that it is so complicated. The command structures of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the Uprising in 1916 can be traced to the Fenians of 1867. Even today, the events that led to the Belfast agreement can be found in the seeds that the Irish Taoiseach, Sean Lemass, planted in the mid-1960s. Irish history is so convoluted that it is almost impossible for the average reader to sort out who was on what side during the Irish Civil War of 1922-23. Indeed, it is impossible to tell your average Irish revolutionary without the proverbial scorecard.

Finally someone has created the scorecard that sorts out this glorious mess known as Irish history. His name is Terry Golway and the book is For the Cause of Liberty: A Thousand Years of Ireland's Heroes. This is a book for not only the informed reader, but for the neophyte. Names that are legend in history such as Pearse, Tom Clarke, Sean McDermott and James Connolly, with Golway's help, finally become fresh and blood men. Icons found in the pages of Yeats ("MacDonagh and MacBride/And Connolly and Pearse") become men with a political agenda, whose sole aim is to bait the British into executing them. The Irish revolution is great drama: a David and Goliath battle that ends in disaster; 16 executions, and the start of one of the bloodiest guerilla wars in the history of the 20th century. Heroes abound: Pearse, the enigmatic poet, the "Provisional President" of the new "Republic"; Connolly, the socialist, who the British would have to shoot in a chair because of his wounds; Tom Clarke, always referred to as "the old Fenian" although only 55-years-old, is the master-mind as he gets even for all the years he rotted in British jails.

Although the year 1916 has been lionized, the revolutionary was actually won in 1920 under the brilliant direction of Michael Collins. Eamon DeValera was in America raising funds as Collins and his intelligence unit, known as the "Twelve Apostles," moved in on the British Secret Service. It would all coalesce on November 21, 1920-Bloody Sunday-when Collins' squad assassinated the entire British Secret Service in Dublin. A truce soon followed, which was in turn followed by the infamous treaty negotiated by Collins that split the island into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.

Golway has come up with many historic gems that will delight the aficionado of Irish history. Everyone knows that Eamon DeValera was spared execution in 1916 because he was a natural-born American citizen. Did you know that the British did, indeed, execute an American national? Do you know which one of the 16 men was the American? Give up? Try Tom Clarke, naturalized in Brooklyn in 1885. Only one of Collins' shooters on Bloody Sunday went on to become Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Republic of Ireland and it wasn't DeValera. Try Sean Lemass, who would greet President Kennedy on his historic visit to Ireland in 1963. Golway also relays a wonderful story about British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Tomas Cardinal O Fiaich at #10 Downing Street. "We fought the Germans and the French, and now we're on the best of terms with them," Thatcher said. "Why are we fighting the Irish?" "But Prime Minister," replied the Cardinal, "you're not occupying the Rhine."

Tears, laughter, defeat, victory. Irish history is a delicate weave of all of them and Golway brings them all to life in The Cause of Liberty. It will get your Irish up!

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best Introduction to Irish Nationalism I Know!, April 16, 2000

By 

John L Murphy "Fionnchú" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: For the Cause of Liberty: A Thousand Years of Ireland's Heroes (Hardcover)

I've read a lot of books on Irish nationalism--if not as many as Terry Golway has listed in his excellent bibliography!--and I recommend his work as a readable, fair-minded, and well-told introduction to the subject. A thousand years condensed into a little over 300 pp. of lively narrative; although about 700 years gets condensed into the book's first few pages. Most of the concentration is upon the period from the 1700's forward, and the pace picks up when the 1798 rebellion, the first of many, begins. Golway's capsule biographies of many of participants gather essential details and apropos anecdotes to give a brief sketch of many names that most readers may have only heard a bit at best about before. This panoramic perspective gives the history a broader scope than other such introductions to Irish history, and he uncovers factual nuggets about many of the figures that help the curious reader to keep them easily in mind. Assuming nothing on the part of the reader in prior knowledge of the period, he writes a study that at the same time can satisfy those who thought they were already familiar with these events. Like a good popularizer should accomplish in a popular history, Golway tells the story with no wearisome editorializing, no maudlin asides, and no apparent ideological hidden agenda. The facts speak for themselves, and whet your appetite for more--many further works can be tracked down through his notes and bibliography. If you're looking for a place to start yourself or another reader on a journey into the Irish past and present, it's a great place to begin.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST One-Volume History of Irish Nationalism Available, March 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: For the Cause of Liberty: A Thousand Years of Ireland's Heroes (Hardcover)

One of the most endearing aspects of this fine book is its compactness -- just 335 pages to tell the saga of Ireland's 1000-year struggle for freedom. Far more important, however, is the focus of the book -- not on the often dreary minutiae of Anglo-Irish politics, but rather on the people, the men and women who have arisen generation after generation in Irish history to champion the cause of freedom. It's history through biography and done with a historian's attention to detail and a journalist's sense of style. It is, quite simply put, THE BEST one-volume history of Irish nationalism around.