The Irish in the Resistance

'You simply couldn't stand by with your arms folded.'

These were the words of Samuel Beckett who famously returned to France from a holiday in Ireland when World War II broke out. His clandestine work against the Nazi occupation of Europe is well documented, but there were many other ordinary Irish people who joined the underground network.

Some took up arms. Others gathered intelligence, sheltered fugitives, committed acts of sabotage or broke codes. This new history tells the stories of those forgotten Irish men and women.

Discover Captain John Keany from Cork, who parachuted into occupied Italy to help the local Resistance; Margaret Kelly, the Dublin founder of the world-famous Bluebell Girls cabaret troupe in Paris, who hid her Jewish husband; and Catherine Crean, the Irish governess born on Moore Street, Dublin, who was sent to a concentration camp for helping Allied airmen in Belgium.

These, and many more stories, span the course of World War II and remind us of the power of individuals to make a difference.

'An eye-opening account of how ordinary people caught up in extraordinary situations helped to fight the Nazis' David McCullagh

'A truly important and groundbreaking book' Mary Kenny