Eoin Neeson's latest book, his 14th, was with English publishers for more than a year - and they were most enthusiastic. Then, he says, they consulted a number of revisionist historians who, acting in accord, succeeded in having it suppressed. Consequently, Birth of a Republic came out this week from Prestige Books, a new Irish publisher run by chartered surveyor, Terry Sudway.
Neeson, a pony-tailed former senior civil servant who was head of the GIS in the Jack Lynch years from 1968-73, says it was important the book came out this year, the bicentenary of 1798. It is the first, he says, to give a continuous narrative account of what happened from the arrival of republicanism in Ireland at the end of the 18th century to the foundation of the Irish Free State 125 years later. He says many under the age of 45 have difficulty distinguishing between the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War - let alone understanding them.