‘a deeply moving account of wasted lives and purposeless slaughter’
Irish Times
‘brilliantly researched and magnificently illustrated analysis’
Irish News
During the 1916 Battle of the Somme in WW1 the Ulster division lost over two thousand men, and more than three thousand suffered injuries. Their tragic story, and great bravery, has since become iconic in Ulster Protestant and Northern Ireland tradition and mythology.
The book covers the events that led up to the Somme – including the birth of the UVF in 1912 and the Ulster Division’s formation, training, and journey to France – the battle itself, and the aftermath, when local papers were filled with long lists of casualties and the 12th July parades were replaced by a five-minute silence across Ulster at noon.
Based on Philip Orr’s interviews with Somme veterans, this is the soldiers’ story, told in their eloquent voices, exposing the reality of that bloody summer and its devastating and far-reaching impact on a close-knit community.
About the Author :
Philip Orr is the author of a number of successful books, including Field of Bones: An Irish Division at Gallipoli and Tom's Story: Sentry Hill and the Great War. He is currently working on a study of the relationship between the Loyalist working class and the church, New Loyalties, which will be published in 2008 by the Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland.
Review :
Orr has used official records and published histories and memoirs of the Great War for his study. He has given his account an added richness by drawing on a wide range of personal testimony and memorabilia from the soldiers themselves … This book is both a monument to the mythology of Ulster's role at the Somme and a corrective to that myth ... it throws valuable light on the Ulster Loyalist tradition.
brilliantly researched and magnificently illustrated analysis
... as Philip Orr shows us in his excellent book, history tends to be concerned with confusion far more than clarities, and the author is to be congratulated for recording with accuracy and sensitivity the confusion felt by the young men who went to fight in the Great War. An immensely important book.
