Michael Foley 
The Bloodied Field 
Croke Park. Sunday 21 November 1920

On the morning of 21 November 1920, Jane Boyle walked to Sunday Mass in the church where she would be married five days later. That afternoon she went with her fiancé to watch Tipperary and Dublin play a Gaelic football match at Croke Park. Across the city fourteen men lay dead in their beds after a synchronised IRA attack designed to cripple British intelligence services in Ireland. Trucks of police and military rumbled through the city streets as hundreds of people clamoured at the metal gates of Dublin Castle seeking refuge. Some of them were headed for Croke Park.
Award-winning journalist and author Michael Foley recounts the extraordinary story of Bloody Sunday in Croke Park and the 90 seconds of shooting that changed Ireland forever. In a deeply intimate portrait he tells for the first time the stories of those killed, the police and military personnel who were in Croke Park that day, and the families left shattered in its aftermath, all against the backdrop of a fierce conflict that stretched from the streets of Dublin and the hedgerows of Tipperary to the halls of Westminster.
Updated with new information and photographs.

Table of Content

Contents

Names and Acronyms 13

Cast of Principal Characters 15

Prologue 21

The Invisible War 34

PART I POLITICS AND WAR, 1918–1920

1 The Boy with the Penny Package 45

2 The Outlaws 56

3 The Reluctant General 78

4 The Heritage of Hate 97

PART II GAELIC FOOTBALL IN DUBLIN AND TIPPERARY, AND THE RISE OF THE GAA, 1884–1920

5 A New Force 119

6 Faith Restored 140

7 The Brainy Bunch 156

8 The Challenge 170

PART III CROKE PARK AND BLOODY SUNDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 1920

9 Morning – 7am to Midday 187

10 Afternoon – 11am to 3.25pm 199

11 The Bloodied Field – 3.25pm to 5.30pm 214

12 The Aftermath 231

PART IV THE BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRIES AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH, 1920–1921

13 The Violence of Truth 247

14 The Funerals 265

15 The Inquiries 280

16 War Stories 299

17 The Dead 319

Postscript 323

Selected Bibliography 327

Index 337

About the author

Originally from Killavullen, Co Cork, Michael Foley has written Kings of September, winner of the 2007 Boyle Sports Irish Sportsbook of the year. He also ghostwrote Harte: Presence Is the Only Thing, the autobiography of Tyrone gaelic football manager Mickey Harte, shortlisted for the 2009 William Hill Irish Sportsbook of the Year.
Winner of the GAA’s Mc Namee Award in 2008 and shortlisted for Sports Journalist of the Year in 2003, he is acting sports editor and GAA correspondent for the Irish edition of the Sunday Times. This is his third book. He currently resides in Macroom, Co Cork.