Chief O'Neill: a novel

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Mr.Gumby
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Chief O'Neill: a novel

Post by Mr.Gumby »

As per the thread title. A book by Ronan O Driscoll.

There is a fair bit of promotion going on. Don't know anything about it but there you have it.

See here, for example.

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Re: Chief O'Neill: a novel

Post by PB+J »

I read it and partly enjoyed and partly had a hard time with what he made up. There were actual people who wanted to kill O'Neill: there was no need to make up a villain. But I have a vested interest and come at it for a different place. It was a good read.

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo ... 22232.html.

No cover yet but the jacket will include this: “The Beat Cop is a superb social and cultural study of Irish immigrants and their offspring in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chicago; of the Irish role in policing America’s most corrupt and violent city; and, most importantly, of Chicago police chief Francis O’Neill’s crucial role in promoting Irish traditional music and musicians to create ‘authentic’ Irish identities on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.”—Kerby Miller, author of Ireland and Irish America
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Re: Chief O'Neill: a novel

Post by fintano »

Chief O'Neill was mentioned in the autobiography of Emma Goldman, the noted anarchist (1869-1940). She thought he was a pretty good fellow--for a policeman.
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Re: Chief O'Neill: a novel

Post by PB+J »

fintano wrote: Sat Feb 05, 2022 11:19 pm Chief O'Neill was mentioned in the autobiography of Emma Goldman, the noted anarchist (1869-1940). She thought he was a pretty good fellow--for a policeman.
The story behind that is that O'Neill was trying to undermine a different faction in the police force. There was a faction that tended to hype anarchism as a constant threat and publicize themselves as heroes. They had been responsible for the Haymarket disaster in earlier in his career. One of that faction was a detective name Luke Colleran, and Colleran ran the Detective bureau as kind of its own independent fiefdom. There were charges pending against Colleran and O'Neill would have to carry out the investigation. Mckinley had just been assassinated, and Colleran was trying to distract attention from his own misdeeds by hyping the anarchist menace.

Goldman is arrested and treated pretty brutally, "lightly" tortured, mostly by a guy name Herman Schuettler, who O'Neill later named as his assistant chief. O'Neill talked to Goldman, treated her courteously, and ordered her release. The result was to turn attention back to Colleran's misdeeds, and he was booted off the force. O'Neill opposed anarchism in a thoughtful way, he made that clear, but he was not really opposed to forms of police brutality or torture: he made that clear as well. All this was going on while he was working on Music of Ireland. He was a complicated guy
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Re: Chief O'Neill: a novel

Post by Mr.Gumby »

I read it and partly enjoyed and partly had a hard time with what he made up.
I stumbled into this during a library visit last week and am half way through it. Find it hard to get around the fictionalising and the odd whopping anachronism.
My brain hurts

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Re: Chief O'Neill: a novel

Post by PB+J »

Mr.Gumby wrote: Tue Nov 01, 2022 12:42 pm
I read it and partly enjoyed and partly had a hard time with what he made up.
I stumbled into this during a library visit last week and am half way through it. Find it hard to get around the fictionalising and the odd whopping anachronism.
Me as well. I don't really understand the idea just making stuff up when you are ostensibly talking about a historical figure. When I speculate about what might have been I make clear it's speculation and give the evidence that goes towards supporting it.
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