'I have written poems in words

Now I shall write one in action'

Poet, playwright, publisher, communist, IRA member and founding member of the revolutionary New Theatre Group, Thomas O'Brien (1914-1974) chose the hard road of Left republicanism in the Dublin of the 1930s, at a time when its only rewards were ostracism, victimisation and downright physical attacks. His strongest ideological statement was made in 1938, when he went off to fight with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.

This book is a collection of his poems and plays, and an account of his life. It also contains letters, personal and political, sent to the war front, as well as memoirs and essays by various contributors, which outline the social climate in pre-World War Dublin, and tell of a forgotten but powerful socialist culture.

Contributors: J. Bowyer Bell

- Ireland and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 Sean O hEidirsceoil

- A Personal Memoir of the Thirties Manus O'Riordan

- Communism in Dublin in the 1930s