In 1992 Kathleen Hegarty Thorne’s first became interested in Irish history and its fighting men and women during a visit to the Hegarty cottage in Ballinaheglish, County Roscommon, where the echoes of the footsteps of her deceased great-uncle and his comrades had fallen silent o’er the fields.

In 2005 she wrote her first book, They Put the Flag a-Flyin’, The Roscommon Volunteers 1913 to 1923, which is now in its third edition. Her next book, Echoes of Their Footsteps, Volume I, is a history of Ireland’s War of Independence countrywide, including the months between the Truce and the beginning of the Irish Civil War.

This edition, Echoes of Their Foot-steps, Volume II, documents the actions of men and women dedicated to Ireland’s freedom, the well-planned but sometimes desperate attacks and ambushes, the political pronouncements of figureheads, and the sorrowful events that engulfed the soul of the people of Ireland during the years 1922 through 1924.