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UVF - The Endgame
Now that Northern Ireland’s “troubles” appear to be over, with old enemies the DUP and Sinn Féin sharing power, what will happen to the hard men of loyalism? The Ulster Volunteer Force emerged during the first sparks of Northern Ireland’s Troubles in the mid-1960s. Their campaign of violence quickly marked them out as one of the most extreme loyalist groups. Henry MacDonald and Jim Cusack provide a fascinating insight into the UVF’s origins, growth and decline. They follow the careers of some of the key players in the UVF, including Gusty Spence, Billy Wright and David Ervine. They catalogue the atrocities in which the UVF were involved, including the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; the emergence of the notorious renegade Shankill Butchers; and the various bloody feuds that have infected loyalism. They trace the paramilitary organisation from the violent margins, through the horrors of the 1970s and 1980s, to its shaky 1994 ceasefire and its crucial (if sometimes reluctant) role in the peace process that led up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
Two Souls
Robbie McManus is tortured. His psychopathic comrade ‘Padre Pio’ McCann is never far from wreaking havoc, his punk cousin ‘Rex Mundi’ has arrived from England and is getting in the way, his father is imploring him to finish his A-levels and get the hell out of Belfast – and then there’s Sabine, the mysterious loner in The Pound who shimmers, trancelike, on the dancefloor to the opening track of David Bowie’s Low. Her hair dyed jet black in a Cleopatra cut, she is a moving hieroglyphic that Robbie is desperate to decipher. From the summer of 1978 to a frenzied Irish Cup Final day nine months later, and, through a series of smuggled ‘prison comms’, to the paramilitary-stalked Belfast streets of the late ‘80s, all threads collide in a tense, thrilling denouement. At turns shocking and heart-breaking, Two Souls is a deeply affecting novel that crackles and enthrals, tragically exposing human nature’s futile efforts to make the right decisions and to choose a life worth living.
Martin McGuiness
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Swinging Detective
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Memory in Black and White
Paul Shackel uses four well-known Civil War-era National Park sites to illustrate the evolution of commemorative expression at sites of controversy. He shows how interpretation may change dramatically from one generation to another as interpreters try to accommodate, or ignore, certain memories. Memory in Black and White is important reading for all who are interested in history and memory.
Trimble
David Trimble's ascent to the post of Northern Ireland's First Minister would have marked the end of a remarkable political journey in which a man from the hardline fringes of Ulster Unionism transformed himself into the leader of the mainstream centre of Northern Ireland. Whatever the ending, the story is the same and tells of the evolution of a man whose hand was held high in traditional Unionist defiance by Ian Paisley at the siege of Drumcree in 1996, into a man whose hand was held aloft by Bono alongside John Hume, symbolising the rejection of Paisleyism in 1998. Trimble's career has spanned over thirty years in which he moved from involvement with Bill Craig's ultra-right-wing Vanguard to the prospect of being leader of a partnership government with Seamus Mallon of the SDLP. Henry McDonald tells the story from Trimble's childhood in Bangor, County Down, a town 'as British as Finchley', through his years studying and teaching law at Queen's University, Belfast, and his early involvement with extreme Unionism, to his maturing into a politician seeking reconciliation and the power it might bring.
Colours
Born in Belfast during the height of the troubles, Henry McDonald is no stranger to Ulster's violent history. In this book he chronicles the continuing evolution of Ireland and its people, from the beginnings of Irish Republicanism, through to Dublin's reputation as a hedonists mecca today.
Armed Struggle
A timely work of major historical importance, examining the whole spectrum of events from the 1916 Easter Rising to the current and ongoing peace process, fully updated with a new afterword for the paperback edition. ‘An essential book ... closely-reasoned, formidably intelligent and utterly compelling ... required reading across the political spectrum ... important and riveting’ Roy Foster, The Times ‘An outstanding new book on the IRA ... a calm, rational but in the end devastating deconstruction of the IRA’ Henry McDonald, Observer ‘Superb ... the first full history of the IRA and the best overall account of the organization. English writes to the highest scholarly standards ... Moreover, he writes with the common reader in mind: he has crafted a fine balance of detail and analysis and his prose is clear, fresh and jargon-free ... sets a new standard for debate on republicanism’ Peter Hart, Irish Times 'The one book I recommend for anyone trying to understand the craziness and complexity of the Northern Ireland tragedy.’ Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes
Irishbatt
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Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality
America's remarkable explosion of industrial output and national wealth at the end of the nineteenth century was matched by a troubling rise in poverty and worker unrest. As politicians and intellectuals fought over the causes of this crisis, Henry George (1839–1897) published a radical critique of laissez-faire capitalism and its threat to the nation's republican traditions. Progress and Poverty (1879), which became a surprise best-seller, offered a provocative solution for preserving these traditions while preventing the amassing of wealth in the hands of the few: a single tax on land values. George's writings and years of social activism almost won him the mayor's seat in New York City ...
