A Long Long Way by Sabastian Barry 2005 292pg
18/09/2026 A story of the Royal Dublin Fussileers. in the war 1914 to 1918
The book starts with the mother dying of childbirth. The father was Superintendent of Police in Dublin Castle he had been in the force for 40 years. Willie is too short so he can't become a policeman. Willie volunteered as Kitchener requested and joined the Royal Dublin Fussileers., some men joined because they had been given white feathers. They were given a cheering send off by the population as they marched to board at the docks. They were upset by the reports of the Germans mistreating the population of Flanders. Some of the RDF had been based in India and never expected to end up in war.
There were Chinese "coolies" brought to work for the war, ( errors by the author by then they did not have pigtails.) There were Jewish soldiers from Cork and Dublin and the Rabbi gave them burial rites. On leave in France the book describes a brothel and a woman with a rash on her leg and a soldier who also got the rash.
1916 On leave in Dublin in Sackville Street outside the Imperial Hotel the police have to deal with an uprising with a baton charge that killed 4 people Many wounded. This upset the morale of the volunteer soldiers who saw this. The rebels had hoped for German help. His friend is so upset by the Dublin riots that he refuses to take orders and is tried and executed by firing squad. The family just get a message, died in action or died of wounds. At the trial Willi had not been given permission to speak.
A cloud of yellow smoke was coming towards them and they thought the Germans were using it to hide their invasion, when they realized it was poisonous they began to run. Later on they were equipped with masks but had not been trained for it and there were men who pulled them off and died. The postman would arrive at far away farms with a box containing a few personal effects of a soldier , like an inheritance. Willi had seen soldiers suffering from shell shock and just sitting and shaking, they were useless to anybody or to themselves and had to be sent home for treatment.
Someone sings the Minstrel boy by based on a poem by Thomas More 1807 became a popular Irish song about a soldier that died at war.
Willie comes home on leave and is given a cold shoulder by his father as he indicates support for Irish independence. Then he went to visit his girlfriend Greta who had a baby and was married. She had received a message from a soldier that Willie had been friendly with a young whore girl. in France. British soldiers were no longer welcome in Dublin and kids threw stones at him. He visited the Palsey family and they treated him well. He had admired their son Captain George Palsey. He now had to take a train to Belfast as soldiers were no longer shipping from Dublin. Back at the trenches he was welcomed by his group but the Irish had been replaced by others and he knew few of them and the Irish were considered rebels.
The French had mutanied a year before but the Irish never turned their backs to a fight. The Russian soldiers had refused to fight. He wrote a letter to his father telling him that he loved him and that he was the finest man who had brought up the 4 children without their mother. The priest that had been with him all along was killed and Willie became negligent and was killed in Oct 1918. A letter arrived from his father forgiving him but was returned unopened with his uniform and a few effects.
Countess Markievicz and Madame Markievicz, was an Irish republican politician, suffragist, socialist and labour activist who was the first woman elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. supported the Sinn Fein. Was involved in the 1916 Easter uprising.
John Redmond (born Sept. 1, 1856, Dublin, Ire.—died March 6, 1918, London, Eng.) was the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party got a promise that after the war there would be Irish Home Rule. 1914 Home Rule Act was passed in Parliament and with that deal done he called on Irish volunteers to fighting WW1.
Of 200,000 Irish who fought 49,000 died., however some names could have been non-Irish who served in Irish regiments.
WW! Reverend Adler and 30 Jewish chaplains worked on the Western front.
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Previous reading of A long long Way Sebastian Barry 2005 293pp 30/10/20 BC
1896 The book is about William born in Wicklow, Ireland, Named after King William of Orange 1903 Edward VII visited Ireland. 1912 His father was in the Dublin Metropolitan police. After William came Annie then Maud and was 12 his mother died of childbirth of Dolly and they moved into the Dublin Castle. Because William was not 6 foot tall and could not become a policeman he was apprenticed to a builder. James Larkin Irish Labour leader led demonstrations that were suppressed, 4 men killed. He falls in love with Greta when she was 13, her father joined the army to get a job after the riots. A soldier's wife had an allowance to live on. William joined the army because he thought it would please his father if he could not be a policeman he could be a soldier.. A wide range of Irish volunteered evern from the Irish speaking islands of Aran to public school boys. John Redmond encouraged the Irish to volunteer and then after Ireland's good service the British would give them home rule. His brother Willie died in action in the war. while Ulstermen joined to prevent home rule Ava Maria music by Shubbert. Soldiers received rum rationes as well as smoking or chewing tobacco. Tinned maconochie Spam stew) was eaten by soldiers. France had already lost half a million soldiers. Chinese were brought to dig trenches and graves for the dead. Many labourers had left the farms and there were not enough workers. Fields have to be limed because they are so acidic in Ireland. Algerian troops nearby. Germans attacked with gas the birds in front of them went silent.. When a machine gun was used a man had to pour water on to keep it cool. A rabbi also came for 2 Jewish soldiers who died. Irish soldiers were also sent to the Dardanelles. Soldiers going to a whorehouse and suffering afterwards - painful to urinate. When he came home had to be washed by his father to get the lice and nits off him, some had ringworm. 1916 They were about to board a ship in Dublin to return to Flanders and were marched back to the city to deal with the Easter uprising and instructed to build a barricade. "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity. Catholics were not given commissions? Gas causing hundreds of dead rats in the trenches. Men joined up to leave bad debts, escape a murder charge, for a wager, lost my way and found it in the barracks, wife in an asylum and wanted to get away. "They don't write books about us only on officers" The next time he got leave they were deloused on the way in England .Some Irish soldiers gave their guns to insurgents. Irish soldiers could not be trusted by the English and they were now unable to conscript Irish so the American arrived in time. On his visit home kids threw stones at him and he returned to England via Belfast. The surviving sergeant major became commander even without a commission as there were no officers to replace him. The US lost 116 thousand troops in WW1 half to flu.320 thousand sick and wounded of 4.7 million who served.--------------------------------------
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry2008 301pg 1/3/21
Also the Movie made by Jim Sheridan 2016 Starring Vanessa Redgrave,Rooney Mara, Eric Bana. This story is written and ends in 2007. Rosannes was still institutionalized at age 100. Dr. William Grene, senior psychiatrist at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, is like a co-author, he is dealing with serious issues after the death of his wife. He has been working there 30 years and the hospital is to be closed, she was there when he arrived. Personal fates and national fates are incestuausly bound. She had a child out of wedlock whose whereabouts are unknown. Barry’s homage to the holiness of life. No one has a monopoly on truth. The image of Ireland as a forlorn old woman. Out of malice toward Protestants as well as out of a misplaced moral absolutism, Fr. Gaunt has her marriage annulled William B Yates as a child spent his summer holidays in Sligo. Dr Grene asks her the particulars of her admission as the basement archive had been attacked by mice. "I want freedom but it frightens me" What she wouldn't tell Dr. Grene she wrote in notes about herself. Roseanne's father left her Religio Medici, the Hounds of Hell and Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Hundreds from Sligo had fought in the great war. She discovers her father had been in the Royal Irish Constabulary under the British. Her father when rebels came to bury a member he called the priest. Soldiers arrived, got the rebels and shot them. The church was to take no part in the issue so her father lost his job as graveyard keeper and became rat catcher with a Jack Russel dog. This is work you do after dark also because he had hunted down his countrymen like rats. " a living man exiled from the dead" Surplus babies in the orphanage were allowed to die. Before he could kill a rat drenched in paraffin, it escaped, jumped down a chimney and set the orphanage alight, killing 123 girls. A Jewish Mr fine had a shop in the town. She had to leave school on her fathers death to look after her mom. Br. Gaunt says none of the Irish upheaval favour the Protestants. She married Tom and was seen chatting to John Lavelle, a rebel and her marriage was annulled. She met Tom's brother Eaun on a night walk, brought him home and cleaned him up. Belfast was the worst bombed British city after London in WW2. They spend the night together, when she is ready to give birth she goes to Mrs. McNaghty, who rejects her, she gives birth on the beach and wakes up. The baby is gone and an ambulance comes to take her. Having been pregnant "a nymphomaniac "is enough reason to put her into an asylum. She heard the baby was in Nazareth. The inmates were measured for a smock when they came in as a shroud when they left. Dr. Grene came from Southampton, his mother was Irish. His wife died and he looked for solace in Roseanne. Old Irish farm cottages the kitchen sloped to the door as they brought the animal in. There were more women than men in Ireland and wiser women went off to America to be maids instead of becoming old maids in Ireland. There was a period under de Valera 1932 where farmers slaughtered the lambs in the field as there was no market for them, because England put a duty on Irish exports. Queen Maeve is part of Irish myth. Priests felt they owned the country then. the constitution gave the Church power but never made it the established church. Albert Pierpont, an English hangman brought regularly to Ireland to hang dissidents. Tom had gone to Spain to fight for Franco till he understood what that stood for and returned in 2 weeks. Nazareth House is the orphanage in Sligo. Mc Nalty's daughter was a nun in England. John Kane is John Lavelle's son and he is the cleaner at the asylum and is the one who saved the baby. Old Mrs McNulty had been illegitimate herself. Dr. Grene in England finds the baby's birth certificate son of Roseanne Clear and Eneas Mc Nulty adopted by Mrs Grene of Padstow , in Cornwall he goes to see the grave of the nun who was his aunt. Roseane has alway lived on the edge of the known world referring to the beach where she gave birth.
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