Heroes Of Jadotville

"It is a pity that we, who never believed in the use of force, must suffer for the blunders of little dictators and stupid military leaders."--Comdt Patrick Quinlan, Jadotville, Sept. 1961 ***This new edition from the soldiers' perspectives coincides with the forthcoming Netflix film starring Jamie Dornan. In 1961, during the United Nations intervention in the Katangan conflict in the Congo, central Africa, a company of Irish peacekeeping troops, led by Comdt Patrick Quinlan, was forced to surrender to soldiers loyal to Katanga's prime minister, Moise Tshombe. Originally dispatched to protect Belgian colonists in Jadotville, they were isolated, without water, supplies, or support when they were attacked and forced to defend themselves in a brutal five-day battle. Shamefully neglected by their superiors, they were portrayed as cowards upon their return home. Rose Doyle draws on material provided by Leo Quinlan, son of Comdt Quinlan, as well as interviews, reports, journals and letters to bring answers to an episode that has been under-represented. She blows the lid off the real story of what happened, exposing how Irish peacekeeping soldiers became pawns in an international ploy for control of Katanga and its vast mineral wealth. *** "by far the fullest account of . . . what became known in the Irish Army as the Jadotville Affair" --The Irish Times Subject: Military History, History, Irish Studies]

In 1961, a company of Irish UN troops was forced to surrender to troops loyal to the Katangese Prime Minister Moise Tshombe. The contingent of Irish UN troops sent to protect the Belgian colonists and local population in Jadotville were attacked by those they were sent to protect. This book is their story.

The Irish soldier has never been a stranger to fighting the enemy with the odds stacked against him. The notion of charging into adversity has been a cherished part of Ireland’s military history. In September 1961, another chapter should have been written into the annals, but it is a tale that lay shrouded in dust for years. The men of A Company, Thirty-Fifth Irish Infantry Battalion, arrived in the Congo as a United Nations contingent to help keep the peace. For many it would be their first trip outside their native shores. Some of the troops were teenage boys, their army-issue hobnailed boots still unbroken. They had never heard a shot fired in anger. Others were experienced professional soldiers but were still not prepared for the action that was to take place. Led by Commandant Pat Quinlan, A Company found themselves tasked with protecting the European population at Jadotville, a small mining town in the southern Congolese province of Katanga. It fell to A Company to protect those who would later turn against them. On September 13th, 1961, the bright morning air of Jadotville was shattered by the sound of automatic gunfire. The men of A Company found their morning mass parade interrupted, and within minutes they went from holding rosaries to rifles as they entered the world of combat. This was to be no Srebrenica; though cut off and surrounded, the men of Jadotville held their ground and fought. This is their story.

In 1961, a company of Irish UN troops was forced to surrender to troops loyal to the Katangese Prime Minister Moise Tshombe. The contingent of Irish UN troops sent to protect the Belgian colonists and local population in Jadotville were attacked by those they were sent to protect. This book is their story.

This is the first complete history of the Curragh Camp, from its foundation in 1855 to the present day, under both British and Irish occupation. Dan Harvey, a military historian and an experienced senior officer, presents a compelling and fascinating narrative of the camp’s many evocative eras and episodes. This unique establishment has been key in shaping Irish history while being shaped in turn by the great national and international conflicts that it was founded to respond to: the Crimean War, the Boer War, the Great War, the Easter Rising and War of Independence are all accounted for under the banner of the British Army. The first tricolour hoisted overhead of the camp signalled no change to its level of service as the Curragh’s forces were quickly embroiled in the Irish Civil War, later oversaw the years of the modern Troubles, and forged an international role with the Irish Defence Forces. These grand narratives are interlaced with smaller yet significant tales that personalise the institution and lend vitality to the many facets that keep service, work, and a livelihood in check on world-renowned plains once covered by ‘St. Brigid’s cloak’. Prince Edward’s royal visit and training, and the ‘Wrens’ less welcome visits to the soldiers after dark – everyday and extraordinary matters are described to give the most authoritative history, compelling and meticulously written, of a camp inextricable to Ireland for over one hundred and fifty years

Sean Alcott is pulled from the gutter when an undercover operation goes wrong. His next assignment involves infiltrating a crime family run by fearsome matriarch Aileen Molloy. He immerses himself in his new life and eventually falls for Aileen’s daughter Wren but everything changes when the body of a biker cop is found dumped outside a police station with a list of undercover officers nailed to its forehead. Alcott’s name is on the list. Yet for Alcott, who has found purpose behind the mask, there is something far worse awaiting him than his possible death, something involving his lover’s own masks and secrets.

An engaging history of the Irish revolutionary period, now in paperback for the first time.

During the colonial period, Africans told each other terrifying rumors that Africans who worked for white colonists captured unwary residents and took their blood. In colonial Tanganyika, for example, Africans were said to be captured by these agents of colonialism and hung upside down, their throats cut so their blood drained into huge buckets. In Kampala, the police were said to abduct Africans and keep them in pits, where their blood was sucked. Luise White presents and interprets vampire stories from East and Central Africa as a way of understanding the world as the storytellers did. Using gossip and rumor as historical sources in their own right, she assesses the place of such evidence, oral and written, in historical reconstruction. White conducted more than 130 interviews for this book and did research in Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia. In addition to presenting powerful, vivid stories that Africans told to describe colonial power, the book presents an original epistemological inquiry into the nature of historical truth and memory, and into their relationship to the writing of history.