The author calls his book "the first history of Irish Republicanism defining its origins, propagation and finally its distortion in the 19th century". But it is more about Derry Kelleher himself, a fascinating figure whose passionate love of Ireland has led him down many pathways, including the internment camp in the Curragh as an IRA member in the 1940s.
But he has long since renounced violence as the way to unite Ireland and pleads here for a return to the Wolfe Tone formula of uniting Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter. In recent times, he believes the only genuine attempt to go the Wolfe Tone way was the Northern Ireland Civil Rights' Association (NICRA) in 1968-72, as inspired by the left-wing activist Desmond Greaves.
Kelleher himself was involved in NICRA through his membership of the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society. He was also on the Sinn FΘin ardchomhairle before the split with the Provisionals and was vice-president of Official Sinn FΘin in 1971-72.
He resigned from Official Sinn FΘin in 1976 when "it became obvious that the organisation still calling itself Sinn FΘin was abandoning its position on the national question and that 'the tail was wagging the dog' in a loss of democratic control".
As a boy in Cork he joined Fianna ╔ireann, a junior IRA; was a member of the Republican swimming club, perhaps an aquatic IRA; then the IRA itself, which resulted in a brief internment in 1940. Renouncing violence, he was released and resumed studies for a science degree in UCC. He and other ex-internees formed the Liam Mellows' branch of the Labour Party. When that party split in the 1940s, Kelleher and friends founded the Cork Socialist Party, which he claims helped end anti-Semitism in Cork.
Forced to emigrate, Kelleher worked for a while in Trinidad and was not impressed by "the dying British colonial system." Back in Britain, he qualified as a chemical engineer and worked for Esso. He returned to Ireland in 1960 having failed to secure a post in Whitegate refinery because, he believes, of his IRA background.
Subsequently, he worked for Gouldings fertiliser company and, briefly, for the Ashai plant near Ballina. He thus became what he describes as the "most senior and most industrially experienced chemical engineer in the State".When he moved to Greystones, he became active in Sinn FΘin with the late Seamus Costello and worked in campaigns by the party for better housing and to prevent a development at Brittas.
The author was a vigorous opponent of Irish entry into the then EEC following the Sinn FΘin line that it was a sell-out to capitalist Europe.
His adherence to Sinn FΘin's northern policy was shaken when the Official IRA bombed the Aldershot barracks of the paratroop regiment following Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972 killing cleaning women, a chaplain and a gardener. He himself was arrested on suspicion of membership of the IRA and later released, but he says it damaged him in his professional career.
It must be said that this lengthy book is not easy to read as the author jumps from the 20th century to the 1798 Rising as the humour takes him and his reference section is unhelpful. He has harsh words for his former Sinn FΘin colleagues who he believes betrayed Tone Republicanism by heading down the road to Sinn FΘin - the Workers' Party and then the Workers' Party seeking "an illusory imminent socialist party". For those who ended up in the Labour Party, he has even less time.
He has his own blind spot over the unionist population in Northern Ireland. He sees the abolition of Stormont in 1972 as a disaster which played into the hands of the militarism of the Provisional IRA.
But he has little to say about the role of unionists in a more democratic Stormont beyond assuming naively that the descendants of the Presbyterian "Dissenters" who sold the pass by joining the Orange Order in the 19th century, would join with Catholics/nationalists to campaign for Tone's total separation from England.
It would have been interesting if the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 had been analysed as a belated attempt to democratise Stormont on NICRA lines.
Joe Carroll is a former Washington Correspondent of The Irish Times