Book Eight: The Emergency, 1931 to 1945

The years, 1931 to 1945

Nora Óg Gallagher writes on, the elder voice of the family now. Her letters cross to James Ryan, Sean Ryan's son, an Irish-American man who comes of age inside this final Book.

Éire and the Economic War. Through the 1930s a trade war with Britain squeezed the small farm hard with tariffs. In December 1937 a new Constitution was adopted and the state took the name Éire. A country still poor, but fully its own.

The Emergency. When war broke out in September 1939, Ireland declared its neutrality, and at home the war years were known simply as the Emergency. Rationing, turf-cutting and tillage orders reshaped daily life. Neutral or not, the country was shaken in 1941 by the Belfast Blitz and by German bombs falling on Dublin's North Strand.

Pearl Harbor, and a son in uniform. When America entered the war in December 1941, the family's two shores were joined by dread. James Ryan, the boy the letters have followed, ships out in the uniform of the country his great-grandfather sailed to in 1847. From Ballycastle, Nora Óg writes and waits.

The family in these years

This is the Book where the whole century comes round. Nora Óg's letters carry the tariffs and the rationing, the strangeness of a war watched from a neutral country, and then the long fear for James once he is gone across the sea to fight. When word finally comes that he is safe, and home, the family's correspondence draws to its close, a hundred years almost to the month after Brigid first sat down to write to Seán.

Moments from the twelve letters

• December 1937. The new Constitution, and the country taking the name Éire.
• September 1939. War declared in Europe, neutrality declared at home, and the Emergency begun.
• December 1941. Pearl Harbor, and the first fear for James now that America is in the war.
• Late 1945. James Ryan home safe, and the last letter, a century after the first.

Your county in Book Eight

The O'Donnells are the Mayo edition. Each county's edition holds home through its own Emergency, its rationing, turf and tillage, and the bombing scares as they touched that county, right to the final letter. See how the county personalisation works.