Description

When Rudyard Kipling, whose only son died fighting with the Irish Guards on the Western Front in 1915, penned the words “For where there are Irish there’s bound to be fighting,” he wasn’t exaggerating Ireland’s contribution to the Great War.In 100 stories, one for every year that has passed since the Great War, this collection provides snapshots of how Ireland and its people, at home and scattered across the world, were affected by, and had an effect on, the conflict that changed the world forever.Many of the stories contain graphic first-hand accounts from diaries and letters sent home to loved ones; others are taken from newspapers, the language of the day portraying the mood of the period; some are tales that a book of this nature could not omit, such as Victoria Cross winners, shot at dawns, knights of the sky, accounts from the major battles and tragedies at sea; and the rest hope to introduce the reader to less trampled areas of the 1914-1918 period.Collectively, these stories take the reader from the Galway shore to the Falklands, from the skies over France to beneath the waves of Dardanelles, and from Africa to the Russian front to meet the Irish men and women of whom Kipling wrote.