To Hell or Barbados The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland
Sean O’Callaghan was born in Killavullen, County Cork, on 22 May 1918; educated at Wallstown National School and the Christian Brothers’ School, Doneraile, and later at the Military College, Curragh, County Kildare. He was commissioned in 1936 and served in Cork and later in Dublin with the Regiment of Pearse, becoming second in command to Vivion de Valera in 1940 and serving under him in Greystones, County Wicklow. On leaving the army he became a journalist in Fleet Street working on the Dispatch, the Chronicle and John O’London’s Weekly. In 1952, he went to work on the East African Standard in Nairobi as roving correspondent, covering events in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rhodesia and South Africa. In 1956, after the publication of his first book, The Easter Lily, he became a full-time writer. Between 1956 and 1992, Sean O’Callaghan wrote fourteen books, many of them of an investigative nature. One, The Slave Trade, dealing with modern slavery in Africa and the Middle East, was translated into thirteen languages and sold in hardback and paperback over 100,000 copies. A full-length feature film was made of it by Malenotti of Rome. Included in the books published were two other books on Ireland, The Jackboot in Ireland and Execution. The first part of an autobiography, Down by the Glenside, was published by Mercier Press, Cork, in 1992. Sadly, he died as this book was going to press, in August 2000.