LITMIR.BIZ

The word Zulu means ‘heaven’, but for the suddenly besieged and minute British garrison at Rorke’s Drift, among them a key faction of Irish soldiers, it represented a hellish horde of warriors from the Zulu nation. A Bloody Night documents the terrifying struggle of these Irishmen as thousands of poorly armed but well-trained Zulus unexpectedly hurled themselves in a head-long, deadly onslaught against their hastily barricaded trading station and mission hospital. The battle, a defining clash in the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, was a bare struggle for survival; the deeds and heroics of the Irish soldiers, subdued within the grand narrative, were no less exceptional than that of their English counterparts. Dan Harvey brings examples of their sheer resilience to the fore. The defence of Rorke’s Drift was an epic encounter and an exceptional piece of soldiering. Its tale of courage in adversity against impossible odds endures; the little-known but significant role of those Irishmen present is no less absorbing a story, and all the more intriguing for its unheralded heroism.

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Post D-Day, with the Allies on the newly created ‘Second Front’ driving fast eastwards beyond Paris, and the Russians on the ‘Eastern Front’ pressing westwards, the fervour of the fanatical Fascist Nazi Regime remained undiminished. For the Third Reich it was intolerable to believe that they must now concede. Instead of ending the war and suing for peace, the levels of hostility, hatred, and horror heightened, and the brutality, viciousness and terror increased. The resistance to the Allied advances across Europe, first towards, then within, Germany intensified, and every inch of the Fatherland was bitterly contested. With the Allies, in their thousands, were the Irish. A Bloody Victory unearths these people from the corners of Irish history and transports them back to the D-Day beaches and the bridge at Arnhem, to the frozen landscapes at the Battle of the Bulge, the banks of the River Rhine, to the unimaginable horrors of Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald concentration camps, and finally to the ruinous Battle of Berlin. There was no one individual ‘Irish narrative’ in the Second World War, but there was a narrative of Irish Individuals, and in A Bloody Victory, Dan Harvey pays due tribute to their significant contribution.

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The Battle of Britain, regarded by historians as one of the greatest air battles in the history of warfare, was an early turning point in the Second World War. In the summer of 1940, the German army had, with astonishing speed, mercilessly swept aside all before them and were perched on the northern coastline of France. Outright victory over all of Europe was impeded only by the expanse of the English Channel. The supremely confident, yet-to-be defeated Luftwaffe (German Air Force) were eager for continued action, to claim air superiority and victory over an outnumbered RAF and clear the skies for the amphibious invasions of Britain and Ireland. It was vital that the RAF deny them, and so a ferocious and highly strategic aerial battle began that was to rage for more than three months. Among those in the RAF’s Spitfire and Hurricane fighter squadrons were Irishmen, who were in the thick of the aerial exchanges, daring ‘dog-fights’, and intrepid interceptions of German bombers. A Bloody Summer: The Irish at the Battle of Britain for the first time tells the true and full story of their heretofore underestimated involvement in this epic aerial encounter.

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The epic Allied invasion of German-occupied Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944, has been extensively chronicled. The largest seaborne invasion in history, it began the liberation of German-occupied France, and later Europe, from Nazi control, laying the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. What is less well known, however, is that thousands of Irish and members of the Irish diaspora were among the Allied units that landed on the Normandy beaches. Their vital participation has been overlooked abroad, and even more so in Ireland. There were Irish among the American, British and Canadian airborne and glider-borne infantry landings; Irishmen were on the beaches from dawn, in and amongst the first and subsequent assault waves to hit the beaches; in the skies above in bombers and fighter aircraft; and on naval vessels all along the Normandy coastline. They were also prominent among the D-Day planners and commanders. This Irish contribution to the most extraordinary military operation ever attempted in the history of warfare is at last told for the first time in A Bloody Dawn: The Irish at D-Day .

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This is the first complete history of the Curragh Camp, from its foundation in 1855 to the present day, under both British and Irish occupation. Dan Harvey, a military historian and an experienced senior officer, presents a compelling and fascinating narrative of the camp’s many evocative eras and episodes. This unique establishment has been key in shaping Irish history while being shaped in turn by the great national and international conflicts that it was founded to respond to: the Crimean War, the Boer War, the Great War, the Easter Rising and War of Independence are all accounted for under the banner of the British Army. The first tricolour hoisted overhead of the camp signalled no change to its level of service as the Curragh’s forces were quickly embroiled in the Irish Civil War, later oversaw the years of the modern Troubles, and forged an international role with the Irish Defence Forces. These grand narratives are interlaced with smaller yet significant tales that personalise the institution and lend vitality to the many facets that keep service, work, and a livelihood in check on world-renowned plains once covered by ‘St. Brigid’s cloak’. Prince Edward’s royal visit and training, and the ‘Wrens’ less welcome visits to the soldiers after dark – everyday and extraordinary matters are described to give the most authoritative history, compelling and meticulously written, of a camp inextricable to Ireland for over one hundred and fifty years

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During a time of high tension, terror and fear, the Irish Defence Forces faced the very real threat of the Irish State being plunged into a savagely sectarian civil war. The southern state faced a breakdown of law and order, severely challenged by manhunts, prison breaks, shoot-outs, kidnappings, bank robberies, subversive training camps, bomb-making factories, illegal weapons shipments, and border operations. Soldiering Against Subversion is the dramatic and previously untold story of the Irish Defence Forces’ critical role in defending the southern state against paramilitary forces during the worse years of the modern Troubles. Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Dan Harvey, describes the major operations via in-depth interviews with Irish Defence veterans, revealing how these brave men and women protected the state on home soil. From the kidnapping of Shergar and Quinsworth CEO Don Tidey, the manhunt and capture of INLA leader Dessie ‘the Border Fox’ O’Hare, the pandemonium as the Irish army quells a violent prison riot in Mountjoy in 1972, to the Irish navy’s efforts to thwart gun-running off the coast of Kerry, these first-hand accounts reveal the true story of the fight for the nation’s democracy.

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Into Action is the story of the Irish Defence Forces’ role as international peacekeepers since 1960. While primarily posted to uphold the transition towards peace in overseas conflicts, they have at times inevitably been forced to fight back against often aggressive opposition. Dan Harvey’s fascinating and accessible history follows the major military incidents in the peacekeepers’ sixty-year campaign, from Niemba, the Siege at Jadotville, and Elizabethville in the Congo to At-Tiri in Lebanon, and Durbol in Syria. These are to name just a few of the military engagements that involved supreme bravery on behalf of the Irish Defence Forces and, at times, ended in terrible tragedy. Dan Harvey’s detailed account of the military operations they were involved in reveal the defence forces’ effective responses to crisis and conflict; how they stood firm during ethnically-motivated rioting in Gracancia or intervened in the midst of a clash between Chadian government forces and rebel attackers, and how the Irish nation was halted into mourning in November 1960 by news that nine soldiers of the 33rd Irish Battalion had been killed by Baluba warriors near Niemba in the Congo. These are the deeds and tragedies that have come to define Ireland’s role in international peacekeeping. Into Action reveals the true story of this role and the immense courage that have underlined its operations from the beginning.

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Within the grand narrative of the Battle of Waterloo – one that marks the end of Napoleon’s career as conqueror and the beginning of an extended peace in western Europe – little is known of the formidable efforts made by the Irish who supplemented the strength of the British Army and, in no small measure, directed the outcome of this vital moment in the history of the world. Through empirical research, Dan Harvey has delivered a book that reveals the manoeuvres that the Irish mounted against the French and the courage that they displayed at so many points within the confrontation. Harvey examines attacks from the French infantry, cavalry and Imperial Guard, revealing how Irish soldiers bore the brunt of Napoleon’s frontal assault; they suffered many casualties but were also witness to countless feats of valour. A Bloody Day brings the actions of the Irish at Waterloo into focus, unravelling the true import of their deeds on Sunday, 18 June 1815.

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