Description

During the War of Independence, when Ernie O’Malley lay under sentence of death in Mountjoy prison hospital, some notes of his were smuggled out. ‘Most of all,’ he wrote, ‘I would have liked to talk about the rank and file where I found solace.’

In this account, O’Malley provides an account of various offensives against the British in 1920-21, and is his tribute to the rank and file. He took part in three and had first-hand knowledge of the others.