From Easter Week to Flanders Field: The Diaries and Letters of John Del

John Delaney influenced many people but left scarcely any mark in recorded history. Born in Dublin and educated in Limerick, he became a Jesuit in Belgium before going to work in Ceylon. He returned to Dublin in 1913 and during the Easter Week insurrection, 1916, he walked from one point of military activity to another, chronicling all he saw in his diary. This volume contains extracts from his eye-witness accounts of the effects of 1916 on ordinary people in Dublin and its suburbs.

In 1917 Delaney was appointed as a war chaplain, serving in France and Flanders, 1917-1919. He received the Military Cross for outstanding bravery and dedication to his men. His letters home from the front are reproduced here, giving first hand accounts of his experiences on the battlefields.

Following the war, he returned to Ceylon. When his health broke down eleven years later, he came back to Dublin. With renewed energy he threw himself into the work of the Jesuit mission staff, who gave retreats and parish missions throughout Ireland. He died in 1956.

Dr Thomas J Morrissey is a Jesuit priest, an educationist and historian; former headmaster of Crescent College Comprehensive, Limerick, and Director of the National College of Industrial Relations, Dublin. He has written some fifteen historical works, mainly biographies of Labour leaders, bishops, and well-known Jesuits.