Product Overview

THE IRISH TOP 10 BESTSELLER A gripping investigation into one of Irish
history's greatest mysteries, Great Hatred reveals the true story behind one
of the most significant political assassinations to ever have been committed
on British soil. 'An incredible story, full of melodramatic details, and
brilliantly handled by McGreevy in his wonderfully gripping book.' TOM
HOLLAND, THE REST IS HISTORY 'Heart-stopping . . . The book is both forensic
and a page-turner, and ultimately deeply tragic, for Ireland as much as for
the murder victim.' MICHAEL PORTILLO 'Gripping from start to finish. McGreevy
turns a forensic mind to a political assassination that changed the course of
history, uncovering a trove of unseen evidence in the process.' ANITA ANAND,
author of The Patient Assassin 'Invaluable.' IRISH TIMES 'Intelligent and
insightful.' IRISH INDEPENDENT On 22 June 1922, Sir Henry Wilson - the former
head of the British army and one of those credited with winning the First
World War - was shot and killed by two veterans of that war turned IRA members
in what was the most significant political murder to have taken place on
British soil for more than a century. His assassins were well-educated and
pious men. One had lost a leg during the Battle of Passchendaele. Shocking
British society to the core, the shooting caused consternation in the
government and almost restarted the conflict between Britain and Ireland that
had ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty just five months earlier. Wilson's
assassination triggered the Irish Civil War, which cast the darkest of shadows
over the new Irish State. Who ordered the killing? Why did two English-born
Irish nationalists kill an Irish-born British imperialist? What was Wilson's
role in the Northern Ireland government and the violence which matched the
intensity of the Troubles fifty years later? Why would Michael Collins, who
risked his life to sign a peace treaty with Great Britain, want one of its
most famous soldiers dead, and how did the Wilson assassination lead to
Collins' tragic death in an ambush two months later? Drawing upon newly
released archival material and never-before-seen documentation, Great Hatred
is a revelatory work that sheds light on a moment that changed the course of
Irish and British history for ever. 'McGreevy provides more than the anatomy
of a political murder; in reconstructing this era of blood, poverty and
wartime trauma, he also gives full expression to the terrible forces that WB
Yeats once called the "fanatic heart" and the "great hatred".' THE TIMES
'Thoughtful and well-researched . . . an important and valuable addition to
the library of the Irish Revolution.' PROFESSOR DIARMAID FERRITER, University
College Dublin Read more