Sebastian Barry,,,, A Long Long Way

Published: Faber and Faber April, 2005


"In this novel, Sebastian Barry, studies the life of the young recruit, the divided loyalties of the fuziliers in the First World War, and the lasting effect of war on the human being..
Readers meet Willie Dunne when he is still a gifted boy growing up in Dublin and follow him--through a diary and letters home--into battle during World War I where he must shoulder the unending internal damages of the war along with the hatred of his own countrymen for fighting for Britain. A subject dear to me as my great grandfather left ireland in 1914 at the age of 14 to fight for the british while his homeland was in turmoil and dublin was raised to the grond by them in the 1916 uprising.