Bøker av James Durney

'What has taken place here today was a carefully planned exercise to secure the release of a substantial number of POWs. The block is now under our control.' The infamous 1983 H-Block breakout, which saw 38 IRA prisoners escape from Long Kesh prison, was the biggest jailbreak in UK penal history. It was the apex of a long tradition of escape bids by republican prisoners, who saw it as their moral duty to escape, attempting to do so in increasingly daring and audacious ways. The Jailbreak Chronicles is the definitive book of Irish republican prison escapes from 1865 to 1983, depicting daring events that bolstered the morale of nationalist Ireland and cast a shadow of disgrace on prison authorities. Each chapter features a history-altering jailbreak, such as de Valera's rescue from Lincoln Jail in 1919, the ' Greatest Escape' of 112 prisoners from Newbridge Barracks in 1922 and the epic helicopter airlift from Mountjoy Jail in 1973. Delve into unflinching and urgent first-hand accounts of political prisoners defying oppressive prison conditions and fighting for Ireland's freedom in this thrilling testament to republican resistance.

The Kildare IRA was heavily outnumbered by crown forces and had neither the manpower nor weaponry to seriously challenge them. With about 300 activists in County Kildare, and only about a third of them ready to take to the field at one time, they faced nearly 6,000 troops and hundreds of police and Black and Tans. However, the county was an important axis for intelligence gathering and communications to the south and west, and it is here Kildare made its greatest impact. The open flat plains of Kildare militated against ambushes, while its proximity to the capital also inhibited the Kildare Volunteers. Nevertheless there was a strong revolutionary element in the county. The book looks at the group of Volunteers who followed the railway track into Dublin to partake in the 1916 Rising and details attacks at Greenhills, Maynooth and Barrowhouse. The author also examines the Rath internment camp in the Curragh, reaction in the county to the Truce and Treaty, and the eventual split in the republican movement in the lead up to civil war.This comprehensive account will be a valuable addition to literature on this formative period in Ireland's history.

The Civil War left a more violent mark on Kildare than the War of Independence had. As a garrison county with military barracks situated on the main Cork and Limerick roads in Naas, Newbridge, the Curragh and Kildare town, it had a low level of republican military activity. By the Truce of 1921, however, Kildare's two IRA battalions had evolved into quite efficient military units. Forty-three people in or from Co. Kildare died during 1922-3, while only fifteen people died in the 1916-21 period as a result of hostilities. Kildare had one of the highest numbers of IRA volunteers executed during the war - eight - and the largest single execution - in December 1922 when seven men from the Rathbride column were executed at the Curragh. Fifteen National Army soldiers were killed in ambushes in the county, yet only three RIC men died. Two internment camps - Tintown and Newbridge - housed nearly 3,000 prisoners in 1922-3, while the Rath Camp held 1,200. The internment camps were the scene of mass hunger strikes and mass jail-breaks and the escape from Newbridge is the biggest in republican prison folklore, with 112 prisoners getting away. Includes the full untold story of the Rathbride column when 7 out of 10 arrested were executed in 1922 while other prisoners in Kerry caught in the same circumstances were reprieved.¿