Seamus Brennan: A Life in Government

Operation Harvest, the codename for the IRA's border campaign of the 1950s, was an ambitious plan to wage a guerrilla war in the North. The IRA used tactics adopted by flying columns that had been successful during the war of Independence in a bid to make Northern Ireland ungovernable and force a british withdrawal. In hindsight, it was an abject failure. Most volunteers were from the South with little knowledge of the North. They received little or no support from the nationalist population in the North. Governments north and south of the border introduced internment and the campaign was almost stillborn

Key Players during the campaign were Eamon de Valera, Lord Brookeborough, Sean Garland, Daithi O'Connell and Ruairi O Bradaigh. But Others have been forgotten. In January 1957, the funerals of IRA volunteers Feargal O'Hanlon and Sean South saw an Outpouring of nationalist grief not witnessed in Ireland for a generation. How many know of their violent deaths in Fermanagh on New Year's Day 1957?

This account outlines the origins, planning and phases of the conflict - immortalised in Dominic Behan's ballad "The Patriot Game' - and how it was wrapped in outdated notions of republican romanticism

Barry Flynn is from Belfast and a graduate from Queen's University in Political Science. He has previously published books on Irish sports, including boxing, Gaclic football and soccer. He has worked for BBC Radio Ulster, REE, Independent Network News and Newstalk as a freelance reporter