Dublin 1916: The Siege of the GPO [Paperback]

`Comprehensive in its details of the battle which raged in the city centre and particularly good on its aftermath' --Dublin Evening Herald

`An excellent cultural history that gives due emphasis to the "literary elements of the rising."' --Ian Pindar, Guardian

`The Easter Rising is analysed with verve in this absorbing account which also considers the event's repercussions on subsequent generations.' --Observer

`Magnificent.' --Sunday Business Post

`Definitive... A dispassionate, scholarly, yet effortless read.' -- Irish Sunday Tribune

`This fascinating study shows how the building itself waxed and waned in the imagination...a magisterial review of the sources' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

`Essential reading' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

`This is an elegant, intelligent and literate account' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Headquarters and focus of the 1916 Rising, Dublin's General Post Office is the most famous building in Ireland. This book tells the story of the events in and around the GPO in Easter Week, using eye-witness accounts, diaries and newspaper reports - 'a riveting read' Roy Foster

'Wills makes an ideal guide... she is steeped in the history of modern Ireland... this is an intelligent addition.' Trevor Royle, Sunday Herald --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

It was taken over by the Irish Volunteers on Easter Monday 1916 and held for nearly a week. But the rebels finally surrendered the GPO to the Crown forces after heavy gun bombardment, and the ensuing conflagration reduced the building to an empty shell and destroyed much of the centre of the city. Clair Wills' rich and rewarding book recounts the dramatic events of Easter Week. But she also tracks the obsession with Dublin's iconic edifice through literature, film and art, exploring the twists and turns that the myth of the GPO has undergone in the last century. It has stood for sacrifice and treachery, national unity and divisive violence, for the future and the past.

'Clair Wills brings a cool impartiality to heated political territory ... in this elegant, savvy and absorbing book.' Ronan McDonald, Times Literary Supplement 'A fascinating study' Maurice Hayes, Irish Independent 'An example of the best kind of cultural history, shedding fascinating new light on this crucial moment in the making of the modern Irish state.' Eibhear Walsh, Irish Times 'This is an elegant, intelligent and literate account, taking in the historical blow-by-blow, cultural background and enduring (and enduringly contested) significance for Ireland and the world.' Michael Kerrigan, Scotsman

Clair Wills is Professor of Irish Literature at Queen Mary University of London. She has published widely on Irish literature and culture, and is the author of Reading Paul Muldoon (1998), and the acclaimed That Neutral Island: A History of Ireland during the Second World War (2007), which won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2007.