The Rush to Senlac Ridge-book review

The book’s full title is “The Rush to Senlac Ridge: A Celtic overview of Albion from Neolithic man to the Battle of Hastings in 1066″.

Molloy, a former chairman of the society and current member, took the audience on the journey he embarked on to write the book.

In the first chapter, Molloy attributes the interest in Celtic history that inspired this book to his discovery, in 1999, that he had inherited a condition called hereditary hemochromatosis, or iron overload, from his Celtic ancestors.

Hereditary hemochromatosis is a debilitating and potentially life-threatening condition that produces symptoms ranging from stiff joints to potentially suicidal mood swings.

Molloy chose to transform a bleak medical diagnosis into the sustained research and writing endeavours that have resulted in his first book.

The society’s current chairman, Peter Griffiths reviewed the book.

He said: “Those of us who have been privileged to view Molloy’s evocative powerpoint presentations on topics featured in The Road to Senlac Ridge have awaited this book’s publication with keen anticipation.

“This is truly a book to be celebrated.

“The historical coverage of The Rush to Senlac Ridge has compelled Molloy to handle a wide ranging set of topics.

“Whether he is describing an archaeological find in comprehensive detail, discussing the factors that influenced the outcome of a military campaign, or leading us through convoluted narratives of treachery and violence in Britain,during the Dark Ages, his mastery of his material is always evident.”

Griffiths said Molloy’s writing style throughout the book is consistently engaged and engaging.

“His vivid descriptions of historical figures and their struggles and dilemmas make them live and breathe for us.”

He added that Molloy’s storytelling skills and his enthusiasm for his subject matter are wedded to an unwavering concern for historical accuracy,that has led him to question several commonly accepted “historical truths” in the course of The Rush to Senlac Ridge.

“One particularly striking example of this is when Molloy informs us that centurions in the Roman Army did not actually command, as has been generally supposed, 100 troops,but actually commanded 80 men divided into 10 sections of eight soldiers,” Griffiths explained.

“The term, ‘centurion’ does not derive from the Latin word for 100, centum, but from the Greek word, centuriae, which means a group, gathering or tribe.

“Molloy also points out that the word ‘nepotism’, derives from the euphemism ‘nephews’,applied to the illegitimate sons of popes during the final years of the Western Roman Empire.

“Such illegitimate sons were frequently granted official positions on a nepotistic basis.”

In the book Molloy successfully subverts the Greco-Roman characterisation of the Celts as wild savages.

He, for example, points out that the Celtic Brehon Laws granted Celtic women far more rights than Roman imperial laws granted Roman women.

The book is comparatively sparingly illustrated, no doubt from cost considerations, with six full colour maps in the centre of the publication, together with a historical woodcut mapping the Battle of Hastings, and a colour photograph of battle re-enactors forming an Anglo-Saxon era shield wall.

Fortunately, provided you have Internet access, Wikipedia has online equivalents of many of the photographic images you might expect to find within a hypothetical and much pricier version of The Rush to Senlac Ridge.

Griffiths described the book as a phenomenal writing achievement.

“I, personally, feel it would have benefited from the incorporation of a chronological summary in time chart format, but this is a minor caveat,” he said.

“I wholeheartedly recommend The Rush to Senlac Ridge to anyone who would like to learn about Celtic and early British history, up until the Battle of Hastings, in a lively and entertaining way.”