An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir Dec 2018/Jan 2019 www.dfmagazine.ie 44 | Authors: Billy Hedderman Publisher: Mercier Press Ltd (November 2018) ISBN: 978-1781175934 Pages: 288 Price: €15.29 'Unbowed' tells the story of Captain Billy Hedderman's epic recovery from a freak bodyboarding accident on an Australian beach which left him face down in the sea, paralysed, and drowning. This book is raw, harrowing, funny, but above all inspiring. Commissioned to 3 Inf Bn ('The Bloods') in 2003, Billy served in the Irish Army for 13 years with postings including 4 Inf Bn, 1 BTC, and the Army Ranger Wing. Just three months after moving to the other side of the world with his wife Rita to start a new life, and a new career in the Australian Army, a casual visit to the beach on New Year's Eve ended in disaster. After catching a big wave, Billy's bodyboard gathered momentum and he was sent head first into the sand. Suffering a broken c-spine and damaged spinal cord, he was an 'incomplete quadriplegic' and would spend almost four months in a spinal injury unit fitted with a 'halo' neck brace. The book outlines in remarkable detail and brutal honesty the excruciating daily physio regime, the boredom, the nightly muscle spasms; at times fairly gruesome in its detail. However, the book's chapters alternate between Billy's story of recovery, and the story of his life up to the point of injury. The reader is rewarded with a lighter chapter after each harrowing chapter, as Billy outlines the life experiences that forged his mental resilience. He recounts his first months in the Army and the leadership training he received in the Cadet School and how he developed professionally through an overseas deployment to Chad, and service with the ARW. While the overarching theme of resilience and mental fortitude define Billy's story of recovery, there are also very interesting chapters about leadership, friendship, loss, and how Billy's outlook on life helped unknowingly prepare him for his challenging recovery. This book will likely serve as an inspiration and motivation to anyone who has suffered a catastrophic injury or is enduring a particularly challenging period in their life. GE UNBOWED: A SOLDIER'S JOURNEY BACK FROM PARALYSIS Authors: Síobhra Aiken, Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh, Liam O' Duibhir & Diarmuid Ó Tuama Publisher: Merrion Press (May 2018) www. irishacademicpress.ie ISBN: 9781785371646 Pages: 300 Price: €19.95 The Men Will Talk To Me is a collection of interviews conducted and recorded by famed Irish Republican revolutionary and author, Ernie O' Malley, during the 1940s and 1950s. The interviews in this volume are with those survivors of the Northern Divisions of the IRA that includes well known republicans such as Frank Aiken, Peadar O' Donnell and Paddy McLogan. The book's title refers to the implicit trust the interviewees placed in O' Malley. Some of those interviewed did not contribute to the Bureau of Military History Witness Statements taken in the 1940s. The interviews offer fascinating insights into the North's centrality in the War of Independence and later the slide towards Civil War in Ireland. Key engagements are described in detail such as the shooting of DI Oswald Swanzy in Lisburn, the Egyptian Arch Ambush, The Meenbanad Ambush and the Battle of Raglan Street in Belfast. There is also an excellent section that provides a number of short biographical sketches of individuals referenced in the footnotes which is invaluable to the reader. The book is an insightful and painstaking reflection of the horrors of the Irish War of Independence and the tragedy of the Civil War that followed. The editors of this work must be commended for bringing this important book to publication as it's an invaluable source of reference for this period in Irish history. P O'B KILMAINHAM TALES Kilmainham Tales celebrates 10-years in business publishing history books. On 24th November 2018, Lord Mayor Cllr. Nial Ring hosted a reception in the Mansion House, Dublin to celebrate 24 publications by Kilmainham Tales over the last 10-years. Kilmainham Tales MD Mícheál Ó Doibhilín recently launched three new A5 size books by renowned authors and are available now on www.kilmainhamtales.ie. 'Weapons of the Easter Rising' by American author, historian and weapons specialist Kieran McMullen. Kilmainham Tales Special #3, ISBN: 978-1-908056- 21-4. 128pp €12.50 + P&P 'The Boy in the Picture – Dan Head and the burning of the Custom House 1921' by Michael McKee who was aided by a memoir written by Dan's uncle and brother. Kilmainham Tales Special #5, ISBN: 978-1-908056- 99-3. 98pp €12.50 + P&P 'Who Shot Michael Collins' by renowned historian and author Joseph EA Connell Jnr, who has also written for An Cosantóir magazine. Kilmainham Tales #19, ISBN: 978-1-908056- 19-1. 36pp €6.00 + P&P THE MEN WILL TALK TO ME ERNIE O'MALLEY'S INTERVIEWS WITH THE NORTHERN DIVISIONS

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