Edward Cahill SJ was an influential figure in Ireland during the early decades of the new Irish State Eamon de Valera was a good friend of Cahill's and shared many of is views.

During the Easter Week insurrection, 1916, John Delaney SJ walked from one point of military activity to another, chronicling all he saw in his diary. This volume contains extracts from his eye-witness accounts of the effects of 1916 on ordinary people in Dublin and its suburbs.