Shamrock, Crown and Crescent

During the mid-19th century, the name Eugene O'Reilly was a byword for courage and controversy. A hero of the Young Ireland movement, a mercenary commander, and a man of complex loyalties, his life read like an epic novel of daring exploits and political machinations. From his failures during the 1848 rebellion to his successes as soldier, spy, tribunal judge and Ottoman administrator, his name was rarely out of the papers, his life anything but ordinary. Rumoured to be the illegitimate son of British statesman Lord Palmerston, O'Reilly's groundbreaking leadership of a Turkish regiment of tribal horsemen during the Crimean War saw him recruited to a similar post in the British Army, where he became notorious as the accuser in the 'Beatson Mutiny'. In post-war Turkey he would gain further renown as the rescuer of Christians displaced by the Damascus massacre and the instigator of a failed attempt to raise the Bedouin tribes against their Ottoman overlords in an attempt to create an independent Syria. A tale of adventure, betrayal, and unrelenting ambition, Shamrock, Crown and Crescent recounts the dramatic rise and fall of one of the 19th century's most extraordinary figures, a man who defied the odds at every turn.