BOOK LAUNCH Saturday 12th November 2016, 7.00pm by the author

national | politics / elections | event notice Saturday October 29, 2016 16:59 by JACK LANE - 1916 Commemoration Committee Howth Sutton Baldoyle

THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE:Howth,Sutton and Baldoyle play their part.

While the 1914 Howth gun running that made the 1916 Rising possible is well known, even in Howth itself very little until now was recalled of the part played by local peopl in the Rising, the rise of Sinn Fein and the War of Independence. This story is now told in great detail in what a local community newsletter described as the ""new and magnificent book", Road to Independence – Howth, Sutton and Baldoyle Play Their Part, researched and written by Philip O’Connor over 310 pages, illustrated by 120 photographs mostly from family and private collections. Though its sources are meticulously referenced, the book has been described by detective novelist and former Irish Times journalist, Eugene McEldowney, as a "marvellous read ... written with all the pace of an adventure story, which is really what it is."

The book traces the revolutionary traditions of the area back through the Land League, the Famine era and the 1798 Rebellion. It covers the rise in the area of the Gaelic League and GAA and also the story of the local Unionist community. It tells of the impact of the "Great War" on the area, of those who went to war or fell victims to it, like the crews of the fishing boats, the Geraldine and St. Micham. It also tells of the pioneering trade union movement among local farm labourers and harbour workers, their creation of a Citizen Army branch which was to be the only ICA group outside Dublin to participate in the Rising and later events. It describes the diverse Sinn Fein movement composed of people from a wide variety of social backgrounds and different faiths, the role of Cumann na mBan, the Irish Volunteers and the IRA in the area, and their fate through the Independence struggle and the "Civil War", which left indelible marks on the local community.