Book description
Ed Moloney's A Secret History of the IRA is the best-informed
account yet written of the IRA's evolution from ruthless guerrilla
army into governmental party. But reconciliation between political
figures who until very recently wished each other dead or in jail has
not been accompanied by very much truth-telling about the past. Men
who have been to the White House and hob-nobbed with Tony Blair deny
that they ever fired a shot in anger, or caused a bomb to be planted.
Now, in a truly ground-breaking piece of historical
evidence-gathering, two former paramilitary leaders -- one republican,
one loyalist - speak with unprecedented frankness about their role in
some of the most appalling violence of the Troubles. Their openness
results in a book of shocking and irresistible testimony, their voices
set in the context of a narrative by Ed Moloney of their lives and of
the society they grew up in.
Ed Moloney was born in England. A former Northern Ireland editor
of the Irish Times and Sunday Tribune, he was named Irish Journalist
of the Year in 1999. Apart from A Secret History of the IRA, he has
written a biography of Ian Paisley. He now lives and works in New York.
