Dan Breen

Born in County Tipperary in 1894, Dan Breen became one of the best-known Irish republicans of the revolutionary period. Reliable biographical sources describe him as a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence and the Civil War, and later as a Fianna Fáil politician.

He is also remembered as an author because he wrote about the struggle he had lived through. His memoir My Fight for Irish Freedom is the best-known of his books, and it remains closely tied to his public image as both participant and storyteller.

Breen died in 1969. For listeners coming to his work now, the appeal is its directness: these are not distant reflections from an outside historian, but writings shaped by someone who stood at the center of dramatic events.