I first heard the song The Boys of Barr Na Sraide in Ireland on the small isle of Inishbofin off the coast of Galway. My wife’s grandmother was born here and she immigrated to the United States in the early 1920s. We had visitied Paddy Joe and Regina King, some distant cousins of my wife’s. Their son, Peadar (the Irish version of Peter), had shown me a CD by Colm O’Donnell, Farewell to Evening Dances, which he was very fond of and I share that feeling now. The title of Colm O’Donnell’s CD is taken from the song The Hill of Knacknashee, another sentimental and lyrical ballad on the CD. I shamelessly copied the idea and took a line out of The Boys of Barr Na Sraide, the line that goes “And when the hills were bleeding and rifles were aflame…”, to use it as the title for my book “The Bleeding Hills“.
The Bleeding Hills, Wilfried F. Voss’ new novel, is skillfully divided into three time lines; they keep the reader glued to the story by providing some surprising twists and turns. The first time line describes the life of Finnean Whelan and his first contact with the Irish Republican Army in the late 1960s. The second line is set in the presence and it portrays Whelan’s journey to Northern Ireland where he intends to accomplish his final plot. The third time line is dedicated to the activities of British Intelligence Services, namely the MI5, attempting to apprehend Whelan and his co-conspirator, Martin Sheehan. All time lines come together in the end and they make for some intriguing twists.
A research fellow in history at De Montfort University Leicester (U.K.), Cronin offers synopsis with little insight in this overview of Irish history. Starting with ancient Gaelic Ireland, he quickly moves on to the introduction of Christianity, the Viking and Norman-Anglo invasions, and the effects on the Protestant Reformation. With Cromwell’s invasion in the mid-17th century came the redistribution of land from the Catholics to the Protestants. This is the strong point of the book, as Cronin compacts convoluted Irish history into a comprehensive, readable form. He then briefly covers the 1798 Rebellion, Catholic emancipation under Daniel O’Connell and the great famine of the 1840s, all of which set the stage for the Fenian rebellion of 1867. The Fenians, though unsuccessful, would leave their imprint on Parnell and his Land League. Cronin paints a concise, albeit limited, picture of the events of 1914 through 1923
The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. Finn is protected in his exile in theUnited States after having worked for the CIA . Consequently, British Intelligence has come up with a plan to lure Finn back into their jurisdiction, Northern Ireland , by revealing the identity of the man who is ultimately responsible for the killing of Finn’s wife, Shauna. Here they hope not only to apprehend him, but also lead them to another conspirator, Martin Sheehan, who hides in the Northern provinces . For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland .
