JOE DUFFY’S BOOK on children who died in the Easter Rising topped the bestseller lists for Christmas week 2015.

Just behind it was Jim McGuinness’ memoir Until Victory Always, published by Gill and McMillan. David Walliams’ book Grandpa’s Great Escape was third, followed by Brooklyn by Colm Toibin and Old School: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney, the Nielsen BookScan figures on Writing.ie show.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie last year, Duffy said that he was inspired to write the book after he was approached by the Jack & Jill Foundation to decorate the Children of the Revolution Egg.

“There was nothing definite by any stretch of the imagination and little if any mention of it at all in any of the history books,” he said of the details known at that time about the children who died in the rising.

He went on to write about the 40 children who died in the Easter Rising, and who he said had previously gone unmentioned.

Read: 40 children were killed in the 1916 Rising but they are barely mentioned in our history>

Read: Here are Ireland’s favourite books for 2015>

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