Desmond Ryan, the literary executor of Padraig Pearse, was a pupil of his in St. Enda's College, Rathfarnham, and fought beside him in the General Post Office, Dublin, in 1916, as did his great hero Michael Collins. He had the inside knowledge of the events, the times and the people to create in Michael Collins an enthralling account of the days and nights when Collins was masterminding Ireland's fight for freedom. A masterly portrait of the most dynamic figure of the Anglo-Irish civil wars.