"I would submit that most of us tend to romanticize the causes we support "
I agree entirely Joe - but it doesn't alter the fact that, when we do we tend to deal in our own personal emotions rather than facts.
I'm a sucker for historical novels - have read all the Sansom novels on English history and await the next anxiously, loved the Walter Macken trilogy on the Irish struggle, Liam O'Flaherty's 'Famine' still makes me seethe with anger.... but these are for emotional stimulation, not quotable facts.
That is what I feel about the Uris novels I have read (not just his Irish ones).
I remember presenting some facts about Irish Traveller origins on this forum and being accused of getting them from 'Ireland's Own' - not helpful in a discussion, and certainly not in an argument.
I would have no hesitation in recommending Peter De Rosa's 'Rebels' to anybody who wishes to dip their toe into 'Easter Week' - good history 'factionally' presented with flaws and not grounds for detailed argument.
As enjoyable and generally informative as these books are, they are not history proper; I would no more rely on them for detail than I would rely on Howard Fast's 'Last Frontier' or 'Freedom Road' for your history, though both are among my favourite books.
It's not the job of the novelist to present a 'balanced' picture, but on the other hand, historians can be just as unbalanced in their approach in what the choose to present or ignore, though not quite as unbalanced as some who quote them, (that's not a comment on anybody here, just a general observation on how history is constantly misused to feed agendas).
As I said earlier, there are very few books dealing specifically with Easter Week, not to the depth the subject requires - it's usually included as part of something else.
Hopefully, this anniversary will change that.
Jim Carroll