During the Civil War, when Ernie O'Malley lay under sentence of death in Mountjoy prison hospital, some notes of his were smuggled out. 'Most of all,' he wrote, 'I would have liked to talk.

about the rank and file where I found solace.' Raids and Rallies, an account of various offensives against the British in 1920-21, is his tribute to that rank and file. He took part in three and had first-hand knowledge of the others. 'It was a people's war, that is why we fought so well from November 1920. . ..'

'What helps to make these memoirs notable, as in his two earlier books, is that O'Malley writes more than a documentary in his constant awareness of nature in the background.'

Francis Stuart, Sunday Press

'Entrancing reading, not only for those who lived through those times but for those who seek an insight into the mentality of the men who took on the might of the British Empire.'

E. B. Murphy, Sunday Independent

'Where O'Malley differs from virtually all others who have published their recollections of those years is that he was a writer and an intellectual who was constantly weighing and analysing all that was happening.'

John Kavanagh, The Irish Post