Release of Brian Barton's new Belfast Blitz book

A new publication from the Ulster Historical Foundation (www.ancestryireland.com), which takes a look at the two main Blitz raids in Belfast in the Second World War:

The Belfast Blitz

We are pleased to announce that the Foundation’s new title The Belfast Blitz: The city in the War Years by Brian Barton is now available.

The book is the most wide-ranging, comprehensive and accurate account of the Belfast blitz yet written. Drawing on a rich range of primary and secondary sources it gets closer to the events described than any previous publication. Large numbers of people, including first-hand witnesses, were interviewed, and documentary material was assembled from some thirty archive centres.

Vividly illustrated with almost two hundred original photographs, many previously unpublished, the book also contains for the first time the full list of civilian dead – almost nine hundred names – compiled by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It will thus serve as a timely memorial, on the seventy-fifth anniversary in 2016, of one of the most devastating periods in Belfast’s history.

Priced at only £19.99 (€29.99/$31.99) for a 656 page, heavily-illustrated publication, the book is superb value and an excellent read from one of Northern Ireland’s most respected historians and authors.

The book will be launched next week at two events:

Tuesday, 12 May 2015, at 2:00pm, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, 2 Titanic Boulevard Belfast BT3 9HQ. The guest speaker will be Dr Michael Foy.

Thursday, 14 May 2015, at 6:00pm, The Northern Ireland War Memorial, 21 Talbot Street, Belfast BT1 2LD. The guest speaker will be Lord Bew of Donegore.

All are welcome, please RSVP to the Ulster Historical Foundation tel 028 9066 1988 or email: enquiry@uhf.org.uk.

To purchase the book visit http://www.booksireland.org.uk/store/all-departments/pre-order-belfast-blitz-city-war-years

COMMENT: I'm really looking forward to this book, as it was a previous edition that first alerted me to the fact that my own grandparents were caught up in the Blitz in the city's Whitewell area, a story that no-one in my family had ever mentioned to me before. Thankfully when asked about it, my uncle soon divulged all!

Chris

For details on my latest book Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, and my other genealogy guide books please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. To commission me for genealogical research, please visit my research site at www.scotlandsgreateststory.co.uk.