Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1360478 in Books
• Published on: 1996-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Customer Reviews

A brilliant expose of the "The Troubles" at ground level.
For anyone who would like to peer behind the platitudes of the politicians, the ranting of the religious bigots and the high minded rhetoric of the zealots this is the book to read. Kevin Toolis has managed to obtain some remarkable admissions from the front line operators and their bosses. He also writes, with sensitivity, of those who have suffered from the deaths of their relatives.

The suffering of the victims is placed within the context of confusion and cynicism on both sides of the divide. From a Southern Irish family himself Toolis is balanced and tough minded in his approach. On a personal level his feeling and sympathy for the victims is often poignantly expressed by descriptions of the quiet, relentless and unendending misery of the families of the dead..

I thought this was an honest and enlightening book. One of its virtues is that Kevin Toolis does not proselytise but enables readers to draw their own conclusions.

Excellent
This is one of the best books about the north of Ireland that one can buy. Peter Taylor's books are very good for a British person looking in, while Tim Pat Coogan's come from a historically nationalist point of view. This I feel is the only book to get into the mind set of Republicans living in the Six Counties.

It is an unbiased, critical analysis of all that the author sees around him. He fully acknowledges his own shortcomings as he is basically a war correspondent feeding off what is around him. He has fantastically entertaining stories with the IRA man Dermot Finucane and also shows the terrible narrowmindedness of these people that traps them in a victim's frame of mind.

An excellent read and a must buy.

Getting under the skin
This book stunned me. As a student of the conflict and ex-squaddie (Derry-early 70's). I rate this one of the BEST books I have ever read! For me, his unjudgemental style speaks volumes, especially when he listens to a tape of the the last confession of an informant, just before the poor sod gets the coup-de-grace from the IRA nutting squad.

Another of his case studies is of a guy called Paddy Flood, a young Derry man brought up with the troubles erupting on his doorstep. Coming from a community with very little prospects in terms of jobs, votes and civil rights. He embraced republicanism as his truth - the way he saw the world. After school you riot, after Bloody Sunday the gunning down of people on a civil rights march, you join YOUR army. Flood's downfall was apparently down to his loyalty to a frail Wife. If you read this book, beware you are going to be challenged, so be forewarned you may have to ditch your prejudices.