Seán Hartnett grew up in Cork in the 1970s where he observed the worst of the northern Troubles with fascination. Despite his family s strong republican ties and his own attempt to join the IRA, Hartnett shocked family and friends when he changed allegiance and joined the British Armed Forces. In 2001 Hartnett returns to his native Ireland, but this time as a member of the British Army s most secretive covert counter-terrorist unit in Northern Ireland, Joint Communications Unit Northern Ireland aka JCU-NI, the FRU, 14 Intelligence Company, or simply The Det . For the next three years Hartnett is directly involved in some of the highest profile events of that period, from the arrest of John Hannan for the bombing of the BBC in London, to the tragic murder of David Caldwell; the prevention of the murder of Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair and some of the biggest blunders by British Intelligence in the history of the Troubles, including the true story behind the murders of Corporals Howes and Wood at an IRA funeral in 1988. Charlie One , the call sign for the most wanted targets of British Intelligence operations in NI, documents the journey of an Irish Republican serving in Britain s most secretive counter-terrorism unit. Filled with roller coaster emotions and explosive revelations of British Intelligence covert capabilities and operations, Charlie One provides a truly unique, detailed and unbiased account of the secret war fought on the streets of Northern Ireland.

The story of the Dubliners who served in the British military and in republican forces during the First World War and the Irish Revolution.

This is a major, collaborative study of organised military activity and its broad impact on Ireland over the last thousand years or so, from the middle of the first millennium AD to modern times. It integrates the best recent scholarship in military history into its social and political context to provide a comprehensive treatment of the Irish military experience. The eighteen chronologically-organised chapters are written by leading scholars each of whom is an authority on the period in question. Drawing the whole work together is a wide-ranging introductory essay on the 'Irish military tradition' which explores the relationship of Irish society and politics with militarism and military affairs. The text is illustrated throughout by over 120 pictures and maps.

Unskilled urban workers made up the bulk of Irish volunteers who fought in the British army during the First World War, and Sir Roger Casement described them as being "not Irishmen but English soldiers". In this book, the case of an illiterate general laborer, born in 1876 in Waterford city, who enlisted in the 16th (Irish) Division is used to study the motivation of Catholics enlisting in the British army and to assess the credibility of Casement’s judgment which, the book argues, is too simplistic. The decision to enlist resulted from a complex range of external social, economic and political pressures to which men were subjected during the course of their lifetimes. These are examined in detail and arguments are supported with graphs, charts, tables and numerical calculations. The case of the men enlisting in the British army is considered from three perspectives: via a study of Waterford’s community as representative of the social, economic and political relationships of southern Ireland as a whole; through the presentation of ground-breaking evidence and analysis of more immediate reasons for enlistment; through an examination of why, having enlisted, Irishmen remained loyal to the British army and the 16th (Irish) Division in particular.

During the First World War approximately 200,000 Irish men and 5,000 Irish women served in the British armed forces. All were volunteers and a very high proportion were from Catholic and Nationalist communities. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of Irish recruitment between 1914 and 1918 for the island of Ireland as a whole. It makes extensive use of previously neglected internal British army recruiting returns held at The National Archives, Kew, along with other valuable archival and newspaper sources. There has been a tendency to discount the importance of political factors in Irish recruitment, but this book demonstrates that recruitment campaigns organised under the auspices of the Irish National Volunteers and Ulster Volunteer Force were the earliest and some of the most effective campaigns run throughout the war. The British government conspicuously failed to create an effective recruiting organisation or to mobilise civic society in Ireland. While the military mobilisation which occurred between 1914 and 1918 was the largest in Irish history, British officials persistently characterised it as inadequate, threatening to introduce conscription in 1918. This book also reflects on the disparity of sacrifice between North-East Ulster and the rest of Ireland, urban and rural Ireland, and Ireland and Great Britain.

The story of the Irishmen who deserted from the Irish Army to join the Allies in the struggle against fascism and Nazism during the Second World War, has been kept secret for over half a century. These men fought, and sometimes died, in some of the bloodiest battles of the war. And after the war they were all Court Martialed, even the dead. This meticulously researched book tells the story of the men who fought for freedom but were vilified after death. It tells the story of men like Joseph Mullally who died on D-Day, 6 June 1944, fighting with the British Army on the beaches of Normandy, a year before his court-martial. And Stephen McManus who’d already suffered torture and starvation whilst being worked to death in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Gerry O’Neill risked his life with the newly formed Irish Navy, rescuing wounded British soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk And Nicholas McNamara volunteered to serve with RAF Bomber Command knowing it meant almost certain death. The freedoms and democratic rights we enjoy today were earned by men like these, who fought, and sometimes died, on the home front and the battlefields of World War II. The deserters from the Irish Army, who joined the Allied struggle, faced the horrors of the bloodiest war in mankind’s bloodstained history. Their stories are now told, in meticulous detail, in Spitting on a Soldier’s Grave.