War of Independence internees book launch tonight
'Interned' will be launched at the Curragh Camp Museum today, Thursday 25 July, by Col Brendan Delaney of the Defence Forces Training Centre, the event beginning at 7.30pm
The two camps on The Curragh, named Rath and Hare Park, were similar to camps around the country which held many thousands rounded up by the British authorities of the time.
'Interned' is the first book to tell the story of some 1,500 men who were held in the Curragh camps. They faced harsh conditions, unforgiving guards and inadequate and often inedible food, but maintained their defiance of the British regime. They took whatever chances they could to defy their gaolers, including a number of escapes. The most audacious of these was in September 1921, during the Truce period, when 60 men escaped through a tunnel.
The book contains a list of names and addresses of some 1,500 internees, which will be fascinating to their descendants and those interested in local history, as well as an exploration and details of the 1921 escape.
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