Book Review

The assassination of Sir Henry Wilson – the spark that lit the flames of Ireland’s Civil War

Journalist Ronan McGreevy skilfully lays out the repercussions felt in Ireland after the murder of an Anglo-Irish MP by the IRA in London in 1922

Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, 1st Baronet, Irish unionist politician and one of the most senior British army officers of WWI. Picture: Getty

The shooting of a British MP outside his London home on June 22, 1922 was the match that lit the Irish Civil War, just as the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo eight years earlier had led to World War I. In this book, the Irish Times journalist Ronan McGreevy leads us in minute detail through the attack on Sir Henry Wilson before explaining why it happened and its consequences for our fledgling nation.