The story about the book
It has taken just on ten years to complete this project, although most of the hard graft has been in the last five years. What started off as a small family history project has morphed into a substantial history book.
While I had been vaguely aware for much of my life that my father would not fight for the British and New Zealand in WWII, it was not until I was going through my late mother’s papers in early 2009, that I discovered four pages of what appeared to be a transcript of Dad speaking at some sort of trial. There was also an affidavit from him. I took this material to NZ National Archives and a very kind librarian did a quick search on Papers Past which revealed he had been appearing before the Number 4 Armed Forces Appeal Board on Wednesday July 30th 1940 along with five other young Irishmen. The heading in the ‘Evening Post’ newspaper described them as the ‘Sons of Eire’.
In July 2009, I attended the Australasian Irish History Conference in Wellington organised by Brad Patterson and showed him what I had discovered. He said he was not aware of this story and he and other historians encouraged me to do more research so in 2011 I went to Ireland where I met academics from NUI Galway and asked them if they knew about this story and again they said they were not. Even my own cousins in Galway were only vaguely aware of Dads’ story.
Between then and 2014 little progress was made in obtaining new material but about July that year it was suggested that I contact Geraldene O’Reilly, a Waikato based genealogist. After a brief discussion, she agreed to work as the main researcher on the project and it was through her excellent efforts that several hundred government documents were uncovered in National Archives and other sources. For my part I also did some research focusing mainly on information that would provide context to the base story. From 2014 until 2018 I acquired about 200 books which relate in varying degrees to the book itself. I also conducted some 50 interviews with people in New Zealand and Ireland which had recollections of the events in the 1940’s
The list of names that Geraldene discovered included fathers of boys with whom I attended St Patrick’s College in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. They willingly supplied additional information and photographs.
During the research in 2014/15 it became apparent that one of the key members of the Eire National Association was Maurice Leo Aylward. Thanks to my cousins Geraldine and Mike O’Sullivan in Wexford, contact was made with the Aylward family in Ireland and in particular, Fr Eamon Aylward. In 2016 I went to Ireland and, along with Geraldene O’Reilly, met Fr Eamon in Dublin. Right from the start he was very generous in sharing a wealth of valuable papers which his uncle Maurice had sent back to Ireland before his death in December 1969. On that trip we also met with Eamon O’Cuiv, grandson of Eamon de Valera who again provided some unique insights into his famous grandfather.
In 2017 I made another trip to Ireland to attend the Global Irish Diaspora Congress at University College Dublin and give a paper on the book. Geraldene also attended and we gathered additional material for the project. It was also an opportunity to meet with Irish historical societies in Kilkenny and Galway to promote the book. Again Fr Eamon and my cousins in Moycullen, Co Galway helped to facilitate these meetings. My cousins Marion O’Connor and Fidelma Burke provided me with information and introduced me to other friends and relations, such as Tim Griffin who provided material and contacts.
It took all of 2017 to actually write the first draft of the book, remembering that this was in addition to a full time job, a public relations contract, running a small farm and trying to play golf!
So many people have played a part in the making of this book and they appear in the acknowledgements. But the main reason why it has been possible to write this book has been because my mother, Mary Burke, kept dozens of personal documents and photographs and some old books. Without these, there would be no book and the story of the ‘Sons of Eire’ would never have been told.
Who's in the middle?
"I have this great photograph of three men – on the left is Paddy Sullivan and on the right is my father Matt Burke. But who is the person in the middle? If you know the answer email me please. Many thanks Peter B. PS I think the photo was taken in the mid 1930's."