If you have any question I would be happy to try to answer them.
e-mail me at neilpresage@hotmail.com
If you have any question I would be happy to try to answer them.
e-mail me at neilpresage@hotmail.com
Below is a list of books collected when 'The Troubles' were "hot" and I've added asterisks to the best ones - although read years ago. I've not checked their availability on Amazon.com, most were published in the U.K.
**Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh, by Toby Harnden; pub. Coronet 1999
**Rebel Heart: Journeys within the IRA’s soul, by Kevin Toolis; pub. Picador 1996 (explains what makes the IRA tick)
**The Irish War: The Military History of a domestic conflict, by Tony Geraghty; pub. Harper & Collins 1998)
**Shadows: Inside Northern Ireland’s Special Branch by Alan Barker; pub. Mainstream Publishing 2004 (insiders account)
The Thin Green Line: The History of the Royal Ulster Constablulary GC by Richard Doherty; pub. Pen & Sword 2004
Phoenix: Policing the Shadows by Jack Holland & Susan Phoenix; pub. Hodder & Stoughton 1996 (insiders account of RUC surveillance and CT work)
The Guineapigs, by John McGuffin, pub. Penguin 1972; (internment interrogation allegations)
The Informer, by Sean O’Callaghan, pub. Corgi Books 1999; (informer inside PIRA for the Garda Siochana - Irish Police)
Amush: The war between the SAS & IRA, by James Adams, Robin Morgan & Anthony Bambridge, pub. Pan 1988
Stone Cold, by Martin Dillon, pub. Arrow 1993 (Michael Stone and Milltown massacre)
Fishers of Men, by Rob Lewis; pub. Coronet 2000 (British Army FRU insiders account)
Ten-Thirty-Three, by Nicholas Davies; pub. Mainstream 1999 (FRU expose by investigative journalist)
Beating the Terrorists: Interrogation in Omagh, Gough and Castlereagh by Peter Taylor; pub. Penguin 1980 (RUC methods 1976-79, by a journalist who became a regular writer on Ulster)
A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney; pub. Penguin 2002
Twenty-five years of terror: The IRA’s war against the British by Martin Dillon; pub. Bantam Books 1996
Nights in Armour by Blair McMahon; pub. Ulster Society 1993 (fiction about serving in the RUC)
14 May Days: The inside story of the Loyalist Strike of 1974, by Don Anderson; pub. Gill & Macmillan 1994
Behind the Lines: The story of the IRA and the Loyalist ceasefires by Brian Rowan; pub. The Blackstaff Press 1995
The Serpents Tail by Martin Dillon; pub. Richard Cohen Books 1995 (novel about informants)
A Testimony to Courage: The Regimental History of the Ulster Defence Regiment by John Potter; pub. Pen & Sword 2001
The RUC: A Force under Fire by Chris Ryder; pub. Methuen 1989 (several editions since then by a well known local journalist)
Dead Ground: Infiltrating the IRA by Raymond Gilmour; pub. Little, Brown & Company 1988 (informer for the RUC)
Loyalists by Peter Taylor; pub. Bloomsbury 1999 (book for the BBC TV series; similar book for PIRA)
The Long War: IRA and Sin Fein by Brendan O’Brien; pub. O’Brien Press 1993
Pig In The Middle: The Army in Northern Ireland 1969-1984 by Desmond Hamill; pub. Methuen 1985 (revised edition later)
The Provisional IRA by Patrick Bishop & Eamonn Mallie; pub. Heinmann 1987
Big Boys Rules: The Secret Struggle against the IRA by Mark Urban; pub. Faber & Faber 1992
The Dirty War by Martin Dillon; pub, Hutchinson 1988
Policing Under Fire: Ethnic Conflict and Police-Community Relations in Northern Ireland by Ronald Weitzer; pub. SUNY 1995
Any questions ask via private message.
Added in January 2020 books I missed in 2006, a few purchased since then:
Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency & Peacekeeping by Frank Kitson; pub. 1971 (British Army author and seen by many as a key text and controversial)
Bunch of Five by Frank Kitson; pub. 1977 (this records the author's experiences in Kenya, Malaya, Muscat & Oman and Cyprus)
The Point of No Return: The Strike which broke the British in Ulster by Robert Fisk; pub. 1975 (the 1974 Loyalist strike against the power-sharing government)
Who Framed Colin Wallace by (the late) Paul Foot; pub. 1989 (allegations of "dirty tricks" and Wallace being framed for murder. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wallace )
The Edge of the Union: The Ulster Loyalist Political Vision by Steve Bruce; pub.1994
The Secret Victory: The Intelligence War That Beat The IRA by William Matchett; pub. 2016 (subject of several six posts here and they can be searched for - they were in 2017-2019)
Note: the following book are in the RUSI Military History Library, London and were consulted this month:
‘Armed Struggle; The History of the IRA’ by Richard English (published 2003)
‘A Long, Long War: Voices from the British Army in Northern Ireland 1969-1998’ by Ken Wharton (published in 2008)
The British Approach to Counterinsurgency: From Northern Ireland to Iraq and Afghanistan, Edited by Paul Dixon (published in 2012)
From Violence to Power-Sharing by William Beattie Smith (former Northern Ireland civil servant and then a Queens Belfast academic; published in 2011)
Last edited by davidbfpo; 01-19-2020 at 08:41 PM. Reason: Updated
I read the above books; thanks for the list. I found "The thin green line" very disappointing having read "A force under fire" just before. "The thin green line" seems to be a poor copy of Chris Ryder's book on the RUC with a lesser depth of analysis.Originally Posted by davidbfpo
Bandit Country and Big Boys Rules were among my favourite as well as "NI soldiers talking" by Max Arthur for its "view from the ground" feel.
I will try to get some of the others.
Regards,
W
Bookmarks