William Henry (3)

An interesting account of the men of Galway who fought in World War 1. As an Irish person World War 1 was presented to me in school as a backdrop to the Easter Rising of 1916. The sheer number of casualties is glossed over and the men to served were portrayed as misguided and in some cases anti-patriotic.
This goes a distance towards redressing the balance. Only taking one place, Galway, and looking at the cost of the war, both in death and mental health (the passage about the people of the Claddagh filling in the holes dug by a man home from the front affected me greatly).
For me, an Irish person, WW1 is a conflict of interests. It was a period where people died for what is often referred to as the enemy but who also fought for the freedom of nations.
A book that needs to be widely read. When you think about the numbers who died from Galway and multiply that by 32 your brain wonders and you really think about how terrible a thing it was and how much of a waste it was.… (meer)