Listen free for 30 days
-
Great Hatred
- The Assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson MP
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $35.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's Summary
A gripping investigation into one of Irish history's greatest mysteries, Great Hatred reveals the true story behind one of the most significant political assassinations to ever have been committed on British soil.
On 22 June 1922, Sir Henry Wilson—the former head of the British army and one of those credited with winning the First World War—was shot and killed by two veterans of that war turned IRA members in what was the most significant political murder to have taken place on British soil for more than a century. His assassins were well-educated and pious men. One had lost a leg during the Battle of Passchendaele. Shocking British society to the core, the shooting caused consternation in the government and almost restarted the conflict between Britain and Ireland that had ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty just five months earlier. Wilson's assassination triggered the Irish Civil War, which cast the darkest of shadows over the new Irish State.
Who ordered the killing? Why did two English-born Irish nationalists kill an Irish-born British imperialist? What was Wilson's role in the Northern Ireland government and the violence which matched the intensity of the Troubles 50 years later? Why would Michael Collins, who risked his life to sign a peace treaty with Great Britain, want one of its most famous soldiers dead, and how did the Wilson assassination lead to Collins' tragic death in an ambush two months later?
Drawing upon newly released archival material and never-before-seen documentation, Great Hatred is a revelatory work that sheds light on a moment that changed the course of Irish and British history for ever.
What the critics say
"Heart-stopping.... The book is both forensic and a page-turner, and ultimately deeply tragic, for Ireland as much as for the murder victim." (Michael Portillo)
"Thoughtful and well-researched [...] an important and valuable addition to the library of the Irish Revolution." (Professor Diarmaid Ferriter, University College Dublin)