Sligo History Book

 

Another book finished. Yes, at last, the history manuscript has been posted off to Four Courts Press. Finished of course is an imprecise term. It's finished in the sense that the manuscript has been submitted but there will be proofreading and corrections. On my computer I've a folder in my Irish Revolution folder called The End and recently I had to create a new folder in that called The Final End.

It's a Dylan quote actually, from Idiot Wind:

You didn’t know it,
you didn’t think it could be done,
in the final end he won the wars
After losin’ every battle

The editors have OK-ed the final draft and that's great. I have never been so edited as over the last year between the poetry collection and the history book. It is just brilliant to have editors who read your work carefully and basically tell you what's wrong. Then you can just go ahead and do the corrections.

I've exceeded the 70,000 words but only by a little. Every comma has been inserted in the appropriate place in the copious footnotes and a great selection of photographs have been chosen and captioned.

I don't think the cover design has been finalized yet but the photograph above of the Rolls Royce armoured car taken in Old Market Street, Sligo on 16 April 1922 will be used in the design. The photograph is from the National Library of Ireland collections.

The book is due out before the end of the year.