Voices of the Free State — an impressive book faturing selected essays from WG Fitzgerald’s The Voice of Ireland almost a century ago will be launched in the city next week.
The book is the latest to be written/edited by the prolific Eoin and Niamh O Dochartaigh and will be launched by Galway Advertiser chairman and founder, Ronnie O’Gorman in Charlie Byrne’s Bookstore in Galway on Friday March 11.
That rare old volume The Voice of Ireland, was compiled by London journalist WG Fitzgerald who assembled stories and first hand accounts of people in all strands of society in the Ireland of 1922-24.
Over 40 of these essays have now been released by the editors of today. They deal with the early days of the Sinn Féin movement, the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Northern situation, women’s political and labour involvement, the Literary revival, the Irish language movement, and the Arts.
The authors include Maud Gonne, Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, Lloyd George, Eamon De Valera, Mary MacSwiney, Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, Sir Edward Carson, WB Yeats, Dr Douglas Hude and many lesser known and forgotten individuals.
The biographies and over 150 old photos add a sense of place and atmosphere to these voices of nearly 100 years ago.
