The Irish Civil War ended in 1923. Eighty years on, documentary maker Tom Hurley wondered if there were many civilians and combatants left from across Ireland who experienced the years 1919 to 1923, their prelude and aftermath.

In early 2003, he recorded the experiences of 18 people, conducting two further interviews abroad in 2004. Tom spoke to a cross-section (Catholic, Protestant, Unionist and Nationalist) who were in their teens or early twenties during the civil war. The chronological approach he has taken spans fifty years, beginning with the oldest interviewee’s birth in 1899 and ending when the Free State became a republic in 1949. 

Tom Hurley is a radio documentary maker and producer from West Cork whose particular focus is on conducting research into what he terms ‘neglected incidents’ from our country’s past. This is his first book.