Great Hatred: The Assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson MP
Written by Ronan McGreevy
Narrated by Aidan Kelly
5/5
()
About this audiobook
THE IRISH TOP 10 BESTSELLER
A gripping investigation into one of Irish history's greatest mysteries, Great Hatred reveals the true story behind one of the most significant political assassinations to ever have been committed on British soil.
'Heart-stopping . . . The book is both forensic and a page-turner, and ultimately deeply tragic, for Ireland as much as for the murder victim.'
MICHAEL PORTILLO
'Gripping from start to finish. McGreevy turns a forensic mind to a political assassination that changed the course of history, uncovering a trove of unseen evidence in the process.'
ANITA ANAND, author of The Patient Assassin
'Invaluable.' IRISH TIMES
'Intellgient and insightful.' IRISH INDEPENDENT
On 22 June 1922, Sir Henry Wilson - the former head of the British army and one of those credited with winning the First World War - was shot and killed by two veterans of that war turned IRA members in what was the most significant political murder to have taken place on British soil for more than a century. His assassins were well-educated and pious men. One had lost a leg during the Battle of Passchendaele. Shocking British society to the core, the shooting caused consternation in the government and almost restarted the conflict between Britain and Ireland that had ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty just five months earlier. Wilson's assassination triggered the Irish Civil War, which cast the darkest of shadows over the new Irish State.
Who ordered the killing? Why did two English-born Irish nationalists kill an Irish-born British imperialist? What was Wilson's role in the Northern Ireland government and the violence which matched the intensity of the Troubles fifty years later? Why would Michael Collins, who risked his life to sign a peace treaty with Great Britain, want one of its most famous soldiers dead, and how did the Wilson assassination lead to Collins' tragic death in an ambush two months later?
Drawing upon newly released archival material and never-before-seen documentation, Great Hatred is a revelatory work that sheds light on a moment that changed the course of Irish and British history for ever.
'McGreevy provides more than the anatomy of a political murder; in reconstructing this era of blood, poverty and wartime trauma, he also gives full expression to the terrible forces that WB Yeats once called the "fanatic heart" and the "great hatred".'
THE TIMES
'Thoughtful and well-researched . . . an important and valuable addition to the library of the Irish Revolution.'
PROFESSOR DIARMAID FERRITER, University College Dublin
Ronan McGreevy
Ronan McGreevy is a journalist and videographer. He has worked for The Times, the BBC and Sky News. He is currently a journalist and videographer with The Irish Times. His first book is Wherever the Firing Line Extends: Ireland and the Western Front. He is the editor of Centenary – Ireland Remembers 1916, the official Irish State book marking the centenary of the Easter Rising to be published in the autumn of 2017.
Related to Great Hatred
Related audiobooks
Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-Block Hunger Strike Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Northern Ireland: The Fragile Peace Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Times Great Scottish Lives: Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A History of Irish Organized Crime: Blood, Bombs, and Tears for the Homeland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Max Hastings On War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Culloden: Scotland's Last Battle and the Forging of the British Empire Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Start of World War I: The History of the Events at the Beginning of the Great War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Peace and War: Britain in 1914 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On This Day in Politics: Britain's Political History in 365 Days Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The London Cage: The Secret History of Britain's World War II Interrogation Centre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Churchill's German Army: The Germans who fought for Britain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArmed Struggle: The History of the IRA Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spymaster: The Man Who Saved MI6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAge of Emergency: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned Victorian England Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ambush at Central Park: When the IRA Came to New York Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Agents of Influence: Britain's Secret Intelligence War Against the IRA Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Against the Wind: Memoir of a Dissident Dubliner: N/A Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How To Fix Northern Ireland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Burned: The Inside Story of the 'Cash-for-Ash' Scandal and Northern Ireland's Secretive New Elite Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sinn Féin: The History and Legacy of the Irish Republican Political Party Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Battle of Monte Cassino: The History of the Battle for Rome during World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Playing the Pools Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Men of 18 in 1918: Memories of the Western Front in World War One Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Padre: The True Story of the Irish Priest who Armed the IRA with Gaddafi's Money Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A New Ireland: How Europe's Most Conservative Country Became Its Most Liberal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Agincourt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
European History For You
The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The War on the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of American Cemeteries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Life in the Middle Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Teutonic Knights: A Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Napoleon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Iron, Fire and Ice: The Real History that Inspired Game of Thrones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Templars: The History and the Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Royal Witches: Witchcraft and the Nobility in Fifteenth-Century England Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reformation: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler's Bunker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Great Hatred
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gripping from start to finish..A very interesting read..thoroughly enjoyed it