This is an important and gripping historical document, since Deasy was an active - and fairly prominent - republican militant during the Civil War, mostly though not exclusively in Cork. Among other crucial points, he confirms that de Valera was a dove rather than a hawk, and that extremists such as Liam Lynch tended to call the tune; he admits too, without hedging, that the war had little popular support in large areas of the country. Deasy also believed that the growing ruthlessness of Treaty ite reprisals and executions helped to prolong the fighting, when a more moderate or diplomatic approach might have reaped dividends. There is a close-up account of the Beal na Blath ambush in which Michael Collins died, though Deasy himself was not present during the actual shooting. Arrested finally while sleeping in a friendly farmhouse, he was sentenced to death but signed a document of unconditional surrender, and when it was all over he went successfully into business and private life.
Brian Fallon