One of the most complicated and incisive books ever written on Ireland’s liberation efforts, Tom Barry’s Guerilla Days in Ireland is an explosive memoir that details the writer’s unlikely journey from serving in the British Army during World War I to his membership in the IRA as one of its most lethal volunteers.

Barry was fighting battles for the Brits against the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Iraq when he first heard of the Easter Rising back in his homeland of Ireland. Immediately inspired by the event, Barry asked to have his rank dropped in the English Army and soon returned home to join the Irish republican movement.

Upon his return to Ireland, Barry infiltrated an ex-servicemen’s organization at the behest of local IRA officials, collecting information and forming contacts with his soon-to-be enemies. From there, Barry, using his battle experience and regimented militarism, began training the 3rd Cork Brigade’s ‘flying column’, a small band of guerilla fighters capable of rapid mobility. Heading a number of successful raids against the ‘Black and Tans’, the Brits, despite outnumbering Barry’s fighters 4-to-1, withdrew from the area on account of the staggering fatality rate they incurred.

Barry soon became a commander in the IRA, and fought against pro-Treaty Irish in the subsequent civil war. However, the bloodshed with fellow Irishmen disheartened Barry, and he resigned from his leadership posts. This disillusionment continued, on-and-off, until his death in 1980.