Book description
An ambitious and powerful account of modern Irish history through the
eyes of those who experienced it at first hand.
Forty years after the Provisional IRA was formed and British troops
arrived in Ireland, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness sit together as
leaders of a devolved Northern Irish government, in which Sinn Féin and
the Democratic Unionists share power. The Troubles appear to be over;
the future promises to be quite different from the past. But recent
events perhaps suggest otherwise, as old tensions rise to the forefront
once more.
Through countless interviews with the people from both sides that lived
through, participated in and were victims of the Troubles, the author
builds a picture of the attitudes and the beliefs that shaped three
decades of Ireland's history. There are those whose lives have been
shattered, those who have tried to ignore the realities, those who have
attempted to bridge the divide, those who do not accept the peace, and
some who refuse to look back at all.
What emerges is a balanced and wide-ranging account that explores the
struggle between ideology and compassion, how the battles and politics
of centuries ago still define people's attitudes towards their
neighbours today, and how political injustice and the course of time can
make a complex reality seem like simple history. 'A process described
with fascinating precision and concision by Joshua Levine…the importance
of the book lies in its human details, the individual stories of heroism
and tragedy that lie behind dry historical fact.' - Mature Times
Joshua Levine is the author of Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the
Battle for Britain and Forgotten Voices of the Somme. He is also a
playwriter and writer for television, and has been a researcher for Max
Arthur on three of the Forgotten Voices series.
His first book for Collins, On a Wing and a Prayer, was the story of
the pioneering aviation heroes of the First World War.
