O’CONNOR, Ulick. A Terrible Beauty is Born: The Irish Troubles 1912–1922.

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975. First edition. .pp. 181. Publisher’s black cloth, spine lettered in silver, in the original pictorial dust jacket designed by Desmond Tarrant. A very good copy in a bright and striking dust jacket, with only light wear; internally clean and fresh. A bright copy of this attractive Hamish Hamilton edition.

A lively and accessible account of the revolutionary decade in Ireland, written by the distinguished Irish writer and biographer Ulick O’Connor. The work traces the dramatic sequence of events from the Home Rule crisis and the formation of rival militias in 1912 through the Easter Rising of 1916, the War of Independence, and the subsequent political transformation of Ireland leading to the establishment of the Irish Free State. O’Connor combines narrative history with vivid sketches of the personalities who shaped the era, including Patrick Pearse, Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera, and W. B. Yeats, whose famous line from Easter 1916 provides the book’s title.

Drawing on contemporary sources and memoirs, the author presents the period not only as a political revolution but also as a cultural awakening, reflecting the literary and artistic milieu that surrounded the Irish independence movement. The work remains an engaging overview of one of the most decisive decades in modern Irish history.

[L3 7B]