Florence and Josephine O'Donoghue's War of Independence A Destiny That Shapes Our Ends

by Borgonovo, John; Lee, Joe

• ISBN13: 9780716533702
• ISBN10: 0716533707
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-03-01
• Publisher: Irish Academic Press

Summary

Historian and IRA leader Florence O'Donoghue describes his experiences as head of intelligence in Cork city during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). He candidly assesses the leaders of this period, including Tomas MacCurtain, Sean O'Hegarty, Terence MacSwiney and Michael Collins and critically examines the evolution of the Irish Volunteer citizen-soldiers. He also details his wife Josephine's role as the top IRA spy in Cork's British Army headquarters, working for the rebels in exchange for the return of her eldest son, lost in a bitter custody battle with her in-laws. After O'Donoghue kidnapped the child and reunited him with his mother, the two collaborators eventually fell in love and were secretly married in the spring of 1921. Forty years later, the couple presented their story to their children in order to explain the family secret that had haunted their domestic lives. The first part of the book is O'Donoghue's and his wife's account of their activities in the Anglo-Irish War, written in 1961; the second part is composed of 47 letters in diary form, written by O'Donoghue to his wife while he was 'on the run' during the last ten weeks of the Anglo-Irish War, from May to July 1921. They provide a rare snapshot of the daily life of fugitive IRA guerrillas.

Table of Contents

List of plates and Maps	vi
Maps	vii
Foreword	ix
J. Lee
Acknowledgements	xi
Note on the text	xiii
List of abbreviations	xiv
Chronology of events	xv
Introduction	1	(8)
PART I THE MEMOIRS OF FLORENCE AND JOSEPHINE O'DONOGHUE
`Loneliness and Homesickness'	9	(15)
`Illumination'	24	(22)
`A Job of Work'	46	(31)
`A Campaign against Public Order'	77	(13)
`A Hard, Palpable Reality'	90	(20)
`Mother's Story'	110	(15)
`To Steal a Child'	125	(16)
PART II TAKING TO THE HILLS
Love and Terror	141	(6)
The Letters of Florence O'Donoghue	147	(46)
PART III AFTERWARDS
Truce and Civil War	193	(12)
`A Long Life of Devoted Love and Mutual Happiness'	205	(6)
Appendix	211	(4)
Glossary	215	(6)
Biographies	221	(17)
Bibliography	238	(9)
Index	247