Gene Kerrigan

Satirist, polemicist, crime novelist, journalist – there isn’t much Gene Kerrigan can’t do with a good word processing programme. He doesn’t bother to conceal his anger in print when laceration is required. In his most recent work, a significant contribution to 1916 studies, ‘Kerrigan uses a journalist’s research skills and a thriller writer’s pacing’ according to the Irish Times. The focus of The Scrap is not the signatories – they have walk-on parts in the book – but a unit of young Volunteers, F Company, 2nd Battalion, some of whom, like Abbey actor Arthur Shields and soccer administrator Oscar Traynor, went on to subsequent fame.