Ernie O'Malley
1 primary work • 3 total works
Book 2
On Another Man's Wound, O'Malley's account of his experiences during Ireland's War of Independence, was first published to instant acclaim in 1936 and was followed by his account of his experiences in the Civil War in The Singing Flame. O'Malley had reported directly to Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy during the War of Independence and was appointed OC of the Second Southern Division, the second largest division of the IRA. When the Treaty with Britain was signed on 6 December 1921, diehard Republicans like O'Malley would not accept it. In the bitter Civil War that followed, O'Malley was in the Four Courts when it was attacked by the Free State army. Later he was OC of the Republicans in Ulster and Leinster. He was eventually captured and imprisoned until July 1924. He was one of the last Republican prisoners to be released. The Free Staters had won and O'Malley, feeling there was no place for him in this new Ireland, went to live in the USA where he wrote his memoirs.
Ernie O'Malley was one of the leading fighters in the 'people's war' - as he called it - against the British campaign in Ireland 1920-21. Those were the guerilla days when small groups of poorly-armed Irish Volunteers, the Irish Republican Army, whose military training was for the most part elemental, fought to achieve the aims of 1916 as endorsed emphatically through the general election of 1918: freedom from foreign rule. O'Malley was an Irish Republican Army officer during the Irish War of Independence and a senior commander of the anti-treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War and wrote three books about his experiences, On Another Man's Wound, The Singing Flame, and Raids and Rallies. Raids and Rallies, written while still fresh in the mind and memory, is O'Malley's account of some of the offensives in Tipperary, Roscommon, Clare and Mayo. He took part in three, the attacks on Hollyford, Drangan and Rearcross RIC barracks and had first-hand knowledge of the others including those at Rineen, Scramogue, Tourmakeady, Modreeny, Kilmeena and Carrowkennedy.
