Harry Boland – A Man Divided: By Andrew Brasier and John Kelly

Generally acclaimed in 2000, the year of its publication, ‘A Man Divided’ is the story of one of the leading revolutionary patriots of 1916 and the tragic civil war that followed. Harry Boland was the man who first introduced the legendary Michael Collins to leaders of the Irish Republican Army after they met in London. The two subsequently became the closest of friends leading up to the 1916 Rising and the bloody War of Independence that followed.
That friendship was tragically sundered in the civil war that began after the signing of the Anglo Irish Treaty in the dying days of 1921. Harry joined Eamon de Valera who was adamantly opposed to Micheal Collins and the new Irish Army he commanded in support of the treaty. According to Harry’s nephew, the late Kevin Boland and a former Minister in the Fianna Fail Government during the seventies, Harry’s former friend would have to get rid of him because he ‘knew too much.’
One hundred years after their fight for Irish freedom and the division that followed , this excellent biography concisely outlines the poignant progress of events that first cemented and then destroyed the relationship between both men. It is fitting that this book should return to the market a century after the rebellion that sprouted the Irish Republic, leading tragically to the deaths of the reluctant enemies, Harry Boland and Michael Collins.