BREEN, Dan. My Fight for Irish Freedom.

With an Introduction by Joseph McGarrity (Philadelphia). Dublin: The Talbot Press Limited, 1944 Edition. Small octavo. pp. 320. Contemporary publisher’s green cloth-backed boards, title in black on spine. Some light spotting to endpapers and occasional foxing, boards a little marked and rubbed, but a sound and attractive copy of this wartime edition.

One of the most celebrated memoirs to emerge from the Irish revolutionary period, Dan Breen’s account remains a vivid first-hand narrative of the struggle for independence. Breen (1894–1969), a leading member of the Third Tipperary Brigade of the IRA, was among the participants in the Soloheadbeg ambush of January 1919, an event widely regarded as the opening engagement of the War of Independence. In these pages he recounts the campaign against Crown forces, his life on the run, imprisonment, hunger strike, and eventual role in the emerging Irish state. The work combines personal reminiscence with political testimony and became one of the most influential republican memoirs of the twentieth century.

First published in New York in 1924, My Fight for Irish Freedom achieved considerable circulation among Irish-American readers and was frequently reprinted in Ireland. The present 1944 Talbot Press edition appeared during the Emergency years and helped introduce a new generation to the revolutionary generation’s experiences. Breen’s recollections of comrades such as Seán Treacy and the guerrilla campaign in Tipperary remain among the most frequently cited primary sources for the period, despite later historical debate regarding certain details. An enduring classic of Irish revolutionary literature.

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