Great Hatred - by Ronan McGreevy (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

THE IRISH TOP 10 BESTSELLER

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.

"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

"Gripping from start to finish. McGreevy turns a forensic
mind to a political assassination that changed the course of history,
uncovering a trove of unseen evidence in the process." - ANITA ANAND, author of The Patient Assassin

"Invaluable." IRISH TIMES

"Intelligent and insightful." IRISH INDEPENDENT

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 fifty
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.

Review Quotes

"McGreevy provides more than the anatomy of a political murder; in reconstructing this era of blood, poverty and wartime trauma, he also gives full expression to the terrible forces that WB Yeats once called the 'fanatic heart' and the 'great hatred.'" - THE TIMES

"Thoughtful and well-researched . . . an important and valuable addition to the library of the Irish Revolution." - PROFESSOR DIARMAID FERRITER, University College Dublin