“O’Sullivan Greene’s superb book forensically details de Valera’s mission to gain recognition for an Irish republic, challenging much of the myth- making of a mission that began with such promise and ended in a divisive battle for money, power and ideology.”
Ronan McGreevy, The Irish Times
Revolution at the Waldorf: America and the Irish war of Independence
‘[Amory Blaine] suspected that being Irish was being somewhat common’ – This Side of Paradise , F. Scott Fitzgerald
New York, 1919. With victory in Europe and influenza on the
wane, a new generation is leading the metropolis of the world into the Jazz Age.
But America is still trying to define itself; the eighteenth amendment has passed, the country is going dry; the revolution in Russia, the rise in organised labour, bitter strikes and anarchist bombings fuel a Red Scare; the Ku Klux Klan has become a political force and interracial violence is rife during the Red Summer. President Wilson has returned from Paris with the peace treaty and the divisive League of Nations agreement struggling for ratification in the Senate.
Into this maelstrom arrives the “President” of the self-declared Irish
Republic seeking recognition and funding for his counter-state government set up in open defiance of British rule in Ireland.
This is the real history of the money, power and political battles
that defined Irish
