Sebastian Barry: A Long Long Way
Novel of conflicting Loyalties of Irish soldiers of World War I
Willie Dunne must confront his conflicted conscience when, as a member of the British forces in 1916, he returns home to Ireland during the Easter Rising.
Irish Members of the British Forces During World War I
The 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland ultimately led to real Irish home rule and establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. Sebastian Barry's novel, A Long Long Way, takes as its pivotal event the Irish soldiers home on furlough while enlisted in the British forces during World War I, and their being called upon to quell the uprising in Dublin, firing upon their own people.
Willie Dunne is one such member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, having enlisted at age 18. Willie is the son of a tough, pro-British Dublin police officer named Thomas Dunne. Willie's young love, a poverty-plagued girl named Gretta, not only experiences Willie's departure, but also that of her own father, who has enlisted in a garrison. These absences shatter Gretta, and she attempts to start her life over by marrying another man while Willie is deployed.
As an Irishman, Willie experiences discrimination while fighting in the trenches in Belgium with the British forces, and he is subsequently scorned by the Irish at home after his regiment is called from their departing ship to quell the uprising that erupts at that time.
Ireland's status at this time was unusual. The stirrings of independence coincided with the deployment of tens of thousands of Irishmen with the British forces to the European continent. Indeed, most Irish supported the British troops.
On the front lines, these soldiers experienced every horror warfare could inflict, and many thousands died. Those who survived are all dead now. Sebastian Barry's novel is one of only a few to build a narrative around this historical singularity.
Ireland's Easter Uprising of 1916
At the beginning of the rebellion, there were approximately 10 rebels for every 4 British forces, but as the days passed, some 18,000 troops arrived in Dublin. During that time, hand to hand combat in the streets increased dramatically.
At first, the Royal troops were unsuccessful in putting down the Irish volunteers who occupied several fortified posts. Over 200 troops died or were injured, while casualties were much lower for the rebel volunteers, with only 5 killed.
But by the end of the week, with central Dublin devastated by artillery fire, the rebel leaders, surrounded, surrendered unconditionally.
In the novel, once the rebellion was snuffed out, Willie Dunne continued in his duty to the Royal Fusiliers, returning to the trenches, now not only a veteran, but one whose loyalty to Britain during the Great War had become suspect on the basis of his heritage. In this impossible situation, Willie makes the only decisions he really can in this episode of history that has been minimized by many British and Irish alike.
Playwright Sebastian Barry's 1995 drama The Steward of Christendom has as its main character Thomas Dunne, Willie's policeman father. Additionally, Barry's 2002 novel Annie Dunne takes as its title character one of Willie Dunne's three younger sisters from A Long Long Way.
Though Barry has received some harsh criticism for a few minor historical inaccuracies in A Long Long Way, the book's reception has been overwhelmingly positive, and it was short listed for the Man Booker Prize in fiction and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Though he has not yet been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, Barry is an iconic playwright in the tradition of Seamus Heaney. Sebastian Barry is a member of Aosdána, a selective Irish arts society whose membership is limited to only 250 living artists. A Dubliner by birth, Sebastian Barry lives in Wicklow.
