This compilation, by a filmmaker and a novelist, is mainly of interviews with survivors of 1916 and the War of Independence - and of course its pendant, the Civil War. They include Tom Barry, Maire Comerford, and a number of lesser-known but respected names, and the overall tone is heavily republican in the older sense of the word.
Barry, with a reputation for ruthlessness, insists that he hated war but felt that a struggle for independence sanctioned it; he also gives his reasons for considering the Treaty settlement a sell-out of the fighting men - "Redmond could probably have got that for us without a drop of blood being spilt." Maire Comerford quotes Liam Mellows, one of the hard-liners, as saying that the fighting would last much longer than five years "but they'll come right in the end." A general and deep respect for Michael Collins is a Leitmotiv of the book, which contains much fascinating material and will not appeal to historians alone.