Product Description

A carpenter and builder by trade, Paddy Doherty was strongly active in the Civil Rights agitation of the late 1960s and early 1970s and was on occasion a victim of police brutality. A radical and trade unionist, this is his story as he gives an account of his life in the city of Derry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1440940 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

Customer Reviews

The whiff of CS gas, the sense justice would not come easily
Very readable and enthralling account of the emergence of Free Derry as the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Paisleyites cracked down on the civil rights movement.

Warm and sometimes amusing pen-portraits of Sean Keanan, Eamon McCann, John Hume and Bernadette Devlin, delivered with Mr Doherty's customary off-the-cuff but deep wisdom. The whiff of CS gas, the warmth of the soup in the kitchens, and the unreality of the first confrontations with the British army seem to convey almost an age of innocence, but Doherty also gives a clear idea of what was to come. A man who combined a deep commitment to peace and justice with the realisation that neither could come easily. The book doesn't tell the later stories - about the emergence of the IRA, nor of Doherty's own work in rebuilding so much of Derry, but it's still a treasure.