Conspirators: A Photographic History of Ireland’s Revolutionary Underground, by Shane Kenna

Paperback review

Conspirators - A Photographic History of Ireland’s Revolutionary Underground
Conspirators - A Photographic History of Ireland’s Revolutionary Underground
Author: Shane Kenna
ISBN-13: 9781781173541
Publisher: Mercier Press
Guideline Price: €14.99

This book, published in association with the National Library and the Glasnevin Trust, has more than 200 wonderful pictures and cartoons, the majority of which this reviewer, at least, had never seen before. It starts with the Fenians, in both Ireland and the US, and goes on to the New Departure policy, the land war, the Invincibles, the dynamiters in England and the Pigott forgeries, and ends with a very clear double-page picture of the burial of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in Glasnevin in 1915. Shane Kenna, an authority on the Fenians, especially of the US variety, has written the captions and text in an informative, readable way. The mugshots of Fenian and other prisoners are a poignant reminder of what young men were driven to do in the prime of their lives to free their country from alien rule.