Just over a month after the 1921 truce that ended Ireland's fight with Britain, Ernie O'Malley longed for a return to war. Ten months later he got what he wanted but this time civil war against many of the men he had once fought with, those who accepted the new Irish Free State. "No Surrender Here!" is the first comprehensive collection of letters, memoranda and orders detailing this period of chaos and confusion, intransigence and idealism that gripped the country from June 1922 to May 1923. These documents detail the war as it was fought with none of the benefits of hindsight or occasional artistry that mark the memoirs of many of the men involved, not least O'Malley's own carefully crafted narratives, "On Another Man's Wound" and "The Singing Flame".This collection documents one man's attitude to war and his difficult acceptance of peace, his experience of capture, imprisonment, hunger strike and finally release. In these letters, however, this book also captures the voices of both the leadership and the rank and file: the detached and often inappropriate orders from above, and the confusion of men who know that theirs is a hopeless cause.
Letters to friends and family also reveal the more personal costs of war.These fully annotated documents, contextualized with a general introduction by Professor J.J. Lee, provide extraordinary insights into the republican mentality during the Irish Civil War, into what remains a contested and controversial period of modern Irish history.
