James Malone (Seamas OMaoileoin), of Tyrrellspass, Co. Westmeath, was Michael Collins' favourite spy. Very little has ever been heard of him due to the fact that he wrote his 'Black and Tan Book' in Irish, and that his younger brother, Thomas, who went under the alias of 'Sean Forde', was more in the public eye at the time and later, and was one of the 'Three Toms' whom Collins set out to negotiate with, on the Republican side, at the beginning of the Civil War. The title of his book, B'fhiu an Braon Fola, means 'the drop of blood was worth it', a reference to Daniel O'Connell's famous one-liner, 'the freedom of Ireland isn't worth the shedding of one drop of blood!'. B'fhiu an Braon Fola, which I have transmogrified into Blood on the Flag, one of the very best books of its kind, unfortunately depended on the high quality of its diction, a commonplace among Irish story-tellers, rather than on a system of tedious elaboration, and would have been prohibitive for readers of the future, as it is for uninformed readers of the present. I have supplied the want in the form of two appendices, both biographical and explanatory, in order of their appearance in the text, and have otherwise tried to retain some of the flavour of the original Irish. James Malone was born in 1891 and died in 1959. Apart from the present work, he published Gaeilge gan Dua ('Irish without tears'). The first edition of B'fhiu an Braon Fola appeared in 1958. (Note: He had intended writing on the Civil War but failed to do so. As he said: 'that is another story'). It is in the standardized Gaelic of the time, which is helpful, and has two sketch-maps, one of the bloody Dromkeen ambush, and one of the killing of Brigadier Sean Wall. The second edition (1972) has added photographs, letters and an index at the end, all of which add little to the content. Likewise, it is in re-standardized Irish which is quite unpalatable and, to many Gaeilgeoiri, almost unreadable. There is one notable change in the text - an hilarious bit about Richard Mulcahy at Frongoch has been expunged due to an altercation between the two men at the original launching. Ironically, Mulcahy died in 1971 when the second edition was already on the stocks! Finally, the pamphlet, Tyrrellspass: Past and Present, recounts the fact that James Daly, of Ballynoe, Co. Roscom-mon, had been reared there from childhood. Who? James Daly, twenty years of age, of the Connaught Rangers regiment, was executed at Dagshai Prison, in India, for leading a protest against the atrocities of the Black and Tans in Ireland. As a child he would have witnessed the physical expulsion of Malone's mother from her school by the local parish priest when the R.I.C. refused to do so. Historic times! Historic people! Wouldn't you say? Patrick J. Twohig, Churchtown, Mallow. Easter, 1996.