Soldiers of Folly

More about the book

The Border Campaign was an ambitious plan to use the tactics of Flying Columns in the Irish War of Independence. This account of the campaign, immortalized in Dominic Behan's ballad The Patriot Game, outlines the origins, planning, and phases of the conflict, and how it was wrapped in outdated notions of republican romanticism. The campaign was to wage a guerrilla war, make Northern Ireland ungovernable and force a British withdrawal. It was an abject failure. The IRA received little support from Northern nationalists, while governments north and south introduced internment.