The 1916 Diaries of an Irish Rebel and a British Soldier

This book contains the unpublished diaries of two men writing under fire on the streets of Dublin in April 1916. In Jacob's factory, Volunteer Seosamh de Brún wrote in his tiny diary about guard duties and a bicycle sortie to help de Valera, during which a sniper killed one of the cyclists. Meanwhile, across the Liffey, British soldier Samuel Lomas wrote in his own diary of building barricades across Moore Street and participating in the executions of Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh, giving new insights into the rebellion's grim closing days. Mick O'Farrell brilliantly juxtaposes these two accounts, including fascimilies that show through deteriorating handwriting the increasing pressure the diarists were under, to give a dramatic account of how ordinary participants experienced the events of Easter week.

Mick O'Farrell was born in Dublin in 1966, the year of the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. He has been studying the history and locations of the Rising for some years. He is the author of several books on the subject including 50 Things You Didn't know about 1916, A Walk Through Rebel Dublin 1916, 1916: What the People Saw and The 1916 Diaries of an Irish Rebel and a British Soldier.