Now Café Grey
ith today marking the centenary of the 
truce that ended the War Of Independence, a new collection of historical essays covering Wicklow during those years has just been launched.
With 12 local historians – including our own Rosemary Raughter – covering various parts of the county, this fine book will be available in physical form come September.
Having covered how the impact of the world’s last great pandemic on Wicklow in her Guide three-parter last year as Covid-19 reared its ugly head, in Wicklow And The War Of Independence, Rosemary explores the town even further during the revolutionary period, as she digs ever-deeper into the Bureau of Military History Witness Statements. 
Naturally, Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera – no strangers to Greystones during this time – feature heavily.
12 seats (the other going to Lord Powerscourt, a Unionist), and the second as a truce to civil war is called, whilst James Scannell offers a third, with Two Weeks In Bray, Easter 1919. 
Brian White covers Enniskerry 1916-22, and the Deane Oliver family in particular (Royal Engineer Richard Edward having been killed in action at the Somme on September 7th 1916), with Sheila Clarke covering Ashford’s formidable Margaret Hall Clinch Somerville, who, with the Union flag flying over Clement House, gathered together local 
IRA volunteers and convinced them to let her four British Army sons return from the frontline without harm, or hijacking.
Town with two essays and the county itself is tackled through Rosemary’s take on 1918-19 influenza epidemic alongside contributions from John Finlay, Brendan Flynn, John Goodman, Chris Lawlor and James Scannell.