Posted 10.07.12
KILKENNY FAMILIES IN THE GREAT WAR - Niall Brannigan and John Kirwan
Published by OLL Editions, Thomastown, County Kilkenny
xxxii, 588 pages (including 84 pages of photographs)
Casebound – 297mm x 210 mm
Kilkenny Families in the Great War is the result of the authors’ seventeen year
endeavour to locate and document the Kilkenny men and women, native born and long-term resident, who served in various uniforms during the Great, or First, World War. The result is not a single woven story but a collection of the more than 2900 individual stories of those who served in the combatant branches of the armed services, not only of the United Kingdom, but also of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, S Africa, the United States of America and elsewhere.
Included too are non-combatant auxiliaries – nurses, doctors, medical and Red Cross staff, and retired army and navy personnel who returned to the ranks for
Home Service during the War. Also Merchant Marine, munitions and other essential workers and those (including civilians) who organized fund raising activities to aid the war effort. Finally, in a separate listing, are those military personnel who had definite, but short-lived, connections with Kilkenny during the War.
The people whose lives are portrayed here were drawn from all strands of local society – labourers, skilled workers and artisans, farmers and farm labourers, professionals, clergymen and members of the land-owning and gentry classes. The book is more comprehensive than others in the field in that it seeks to document all those who served, and not just those who died or were killed. It is a major new genealogical resource for Kilkenny and contains biographies of a great many people which are not to be found anywhere else.
Website: www.ossoryll.org
It will be launched in Kilkenny Castle on Friday 13th July 2012 at 7.30pm, all are welcome. Cost on night 40euro but in local booksellers 45euro, postage 10euro within Ireland, orders to publishers at www.ossoryll.org
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