Description

This is an account of how an angry young man can cross the line that divides theoretical support for violence from a state of ‘killing rage’, in which the murder of neighbour becomes thinkable. Over 3000 people have died in Northern Ireland since 1969, and most of them have died at the hands of their neighbours. The intimacy of the Ulster conflict, what it means to carry out a political murder when in all probability the victim is personally known, or lives in a nearby street, is described accurately by an honest participant. The book does not attempt to soften the impact of the events it describes through euphemism or rhetoric. It is a truthful picture of the brutality and waste caused by the IRA’s unwinnable campaign, and of its human consequences. It is also a self-portrait of the despair and disintegration, the hardening to conscience and grief, that accompany political violence.

Publisher Review

Eamon Collins's book is the most devastating account we have of what actually went on within the IRA during its years of 'armed struggle'. Collins revealed the banality, the ignorance and psychotic inhumanity of the little men pumped up into village Napoleons by the Troubles -- Fintan O'Toole * The Independent on Sunday * The most convincing honest book ever written about the IRA -- Jim Cusack * The Irish Times * A moving, even thrilling book... I would recommend it very strongly indeed * Daily Telegraph *