The Real Chief Liam Lynch: The Late General Liam Lynch Chief of Staff I.r.a

by Meda Ryan

With the aid of Liam Lynch's personal letters, private documents and historical records, The Real Chief, traces the turbulent career of one of Ireland's greatest guerilla commanders from his birth in 1893 until his death twenty nine years later in the civil war when he ws killed in action on the Knockmeadlown mountains.

Genres: Ireland, History

223 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2005

About the author

MEDA RYAN, historian and author, is a native of West Cork and now lives in Ennis, Clare; she has participated in television and radio documentaries and has had articles published in a wide variety of history magazines and journals, plus national and local newspapers.
She was was widowed when her Husband, Donal Ryan, passed away in Ennis, Clare in 2013, who was also a native of Cork.

Ryan developed a strong interest in the Irish revolutionary period, and interviewed many veterans of the old IRA. For this reason, she has a huge amount of respect for these individuals and famously was involved in a dispute with Canadian historian Peter Hart on IRA Commandant Tom Barry. This prompted Ryan to write an extended biography of Tom Barry. Her fist Biography of Tom Barry, The Tom Barry Story was written in 1982 for the Mercier Press. Following the dispute with Hart, in 2003 She wrote her extended Biography entitled Tom Barry: IRA Freedom Fighter

Her published books include Tom Barry: IRA Freedom Fighter; The Day Michael Collins Was Shot; Liam Lynch: The Real Chief and Michael Collins and the Women Who Spied for Ireland.

Reviews

[Oisín Dubhláin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ignore the mythologies of Dev and Collins. This was the real man who won the war against the British in Ireland and stood by the republic.

[Reamonnt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book on leader of anti treaty IRA, Lynch was a die hard that would have never accepted the treaty with England,he was also a learned and brave man whos death was Irelands loss, his last words were I believe "poor Ireland,all this is a pity, it never should have happened".