Son of a Dub

About the Book

This book is about a family in the late 19th Century / early 20th Century Dublin, whose head of family and 3 sons wore the khaki uniform of the Crown Forces in Dublin and whose 4th son joined the IBB/IRA. In 1933 the eldest son of the Dublin Fusilier had a son born, named Gerry. This is his story.

The father of this young boy, had served 7 years in the Dublin Fusiliers from 1912 to 1919, serving in the trenches for the four years of the Great War, taking part in many campaigns including the infamous Battle of the Somme, where many thousands of fellow Irish soldiers needlessly laid down their lives during the unspeakable horrors of this disastrous campaign. Wounded twice and suffered the inhalation of heavy gas fumes.

Returning to their native Dublin after the war, expecting to be welcomed home but no welcome awaited them. Their fellow citizens rejected them, they were cast aside, it was not proper to be seen speaking or being friendly with them, they were a legion of lost souls. As the years rolled on, this animosity became redirected at the sons of these brave men and the story of one must be told, to alert future generations of Irishmen of the futility of discord amongst fellow countrymen and the massive comradeship shown by countless Irishmen in the trenches of the Great War must be re-enlisted by the civilian lives of 21st Century Irishmen.

About the Author

Born in the Dublin slums of the 1930s in a tenement house in the moonlight shadow of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in the rebel Liberties.

Reared, in a middle-class suburb in the 1930-40s, ostracized by neighbours, school life a living hell by the cruelty of the Irish Christian Brothers, a family at war from each side of the fence.

This young boy, is one of the lost generation of Irishmen, educated by a narrow and backward education system, spearheaded by the Irish Christian Brothers, resulting in the blotting out of the Irish language for this generation through their failed systems of compulsion, pain and fear, thus forming the foundations of thousands of illiterate pick and shovel experts. This generation of Irish Navvies was Ireland’s great loss and England’s gain. These young men were compelled to emigrate to England, arriving penniless but were welcomed by the dreaded Sassenach. Their hard-work chiselled in granite in the foundations of every motorway, bridge and mini-skyscraper of Britain. Tens of thousands of these unfortunate Irishmen never returned to the land of their birth, many of whom wanted to, but died a lonely death and were buried in pauper and unmarked graves in the land that gave them refuge 50/60 years ago.