New book on life of Captain Jack White

Jack White was born in 1879 outside Broughshane, Co. Antrim, the only son of Field Marshal Sir George White VC.

He received his military training at Sandhurst, where he said he learned about ‘fortification and fornication’, and went on to win a DSO for bravery in the Boer War – although he would later resign from the army in 1907.

Antagonised by the hardline unionism of Carson he attempted, along with Roger Casement and others, to rally a Protestant opposition.

A co-founder and First Commandant of the Irish Citizen Army he later joined the Irish Volunteers. His list of acquaintances ranged from the regal to the radical; he dined with King Edward and the Kaiser and liaised with pracitally everyone in revolutionary Ireland including O’Casey, Connolly, Larkin and Markievicz.

Through a close study of the White family papers and exclusive access to previously unseen archives, Leo Keohane gives us insight into a man whose singular self-conviction saw him through experiences with the British Army, the Citizen Army, the Irish Volunteers and numerous other causes and campaigns - from the Spanish Civil War to international socialism. Despite a reputation of incorrigibility he demonstrated a consistency in his political thinking that cut through the shibboleths and affectations of the more conventional narratives of his time.

About the author: Leo Keohane is a Lecturer in Cultural Theory at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, Ireland. The book is available in paperback priced €21.95 (limited edition hardback €75) from bookshops nationwide and from www.iap.ie