Packy Carty ðŸ”–As someone who believes a book on the War in East Tyrone is long overdue, I was sorely disappointed by the recent publication Death In The Fields: The IRA And East Tyrone by British Military historian Jonathan Trigg. 


The author, a graduate of Bristol University and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst had been deployed in Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq. He has authored over a dozen books with his book on the destruction of the Nazi forces in Soviet Russia, Death On The Don, being nominated for the Pushkin Prize for Russian history in 2014. 

While I expected Death In The Fields to take a pro-British position on the war, I was anticipating for the first time to see in print a clear chronology of events and the evolution of the IRA and the forces arrayed against it in East Tyrone. Perhaps the book would give strategic insight into why from the mid-1980s until the IRA ceasefires of the 1990s the IRA’s East Tyrone Brigade endured as it did multiple shoot to kill ambushes by the British Army, while simultaneously Loyalist forces largely dormant in the early ’80s in East Tyrone were re-armed by British intelligence and directed to attack the Republican Movement's support base in the county. All this was sadly lacking. 

The first weakness of the book is the expected bias of Trigg towards the subject matter, the second is the dearth of sources. Death In The Fields is poorly written and researched and sadly lacking. Loaded, as you'd expect, from the British propaganda point of view, it sadly brought nothing of the Brits' overarching view of the East Tyrone Brigade and is littered with glaring factual inaccuracies around key events which are widely known. This throws doubt on everything printed as you can't take any of what is said as fact. Instead, Trigg promotes the opinions of what seems like a limited number of sources and in many instances, these opinions clash with the facts readily available in the public domain. It relies heavily on the books and articles of other journalists. And again, through omission and deliberate deliverance of some of these source materials, avoids grasping the thorny issues of deliberate state assassination, collusion and the British shoot to kill operations against ETB where Trigg, eyes wide shut, regurgitates British lies such as the SAS gave warnings, civilians were caught in the crossfire rather than deliberately targeted and wounded IRA Volunteers weren't dispatched on the ground. 

Many major engagements by the Brigade are also missing from the book. Trigg was also at pains to reinforce the British propaganda of certain attacks which everyone knows led to British fatalities that were never admitted. The shooting of two SAS soldiers in Cappagh is the most famous incident, leading to the verse in a popular rebel ballad "if your shot up in Cappagh it puzzles me, how you end up in a car crash in Germany." This continued denial rings hollow this week when it was revealed that British military casualties in the North during the war were actually over double the number originally revealed. These fatalities were conveniently attributed to car crashes and natural causes among other things. To believe that excuse you'd need to have come down the Lagan in a British propaganda bubble! 

The book meanwhile lacks proper footnoting and Trigg struggles to write in paragraphs, while half the book has no citations and lacks any statistics from the conflict. 

A book remains to be written on the long war in East Tyrone. Trigg's book is a missed opportunity in that regard. And whilst I know in Tyrone that Republicans are loath to engage with authors and journalists on such a project the sad reality is that in a generation or two those who know the truth will be dead and Trigg's book will, unfortunately, be the definitive account.

Jonathan Trigg, 2023, Death In The Fields: The IRA And East Tyrone. Merrion Press. ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1785374432.

⏩ Packy Carty is an East Tyrone Socialist Republican. 

Death In The Fields

Packy Carty ðŸ”–As someone who believes a book on the War in East Tyrone is long overdue, I was sorely disappointed by the recent publication Death In The Fields: The IRA And East Tyrone by British Military historian Jonathan Trigg. 


The author, a graduate of Bristol University and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst had been deployed in Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq. He has authored over a dozen books with his book on the destruction of the Nazi forces in Soviet Russia, Death On The Don, being nominated for the Pushkin Prize for Russian history in 2014. 

While I expected Death In The Fields to take a pro-British position on the war, I was anticipating for the first time to see in print a clear chronology of events and the evolution of the IRA and the forces arrayed against it in East Tyrone. Perhaps the book would give strategic insight into why from the mid-1980s until the IRA ceasefires of the 1990s the IRA’s East Tyrone Brigade endured as it did multiple shoot to kill ambushes by the British Army, while simultaneously Loyalist forces largely dormant in the early ’80s in East Tyrone were re-armed by British intelligence and directed to attack the Republican Movement's support base in the county. All this was sadly lacking. 

The first weakness of the book is the expected bias of Trigg towards the subject matter, the second is the dearth of sources. Death In The Fields is poorly written and researched and sadly lacking. Loaded, as you'd expect, from the British propaganda point of view, it sadly brought nothing of the Brits' overarching view of the East Tyrone Brigade and is littered with glaring factual inaccuracies around key events which are widely known. This throws doubt on everything printed as you can't take any of what is said as fact. Instead, Trigg promotes the opinions of what seems like a limited number of sources and in many instances, these opinions clash with the facts readily available in the public domain. It relies heavily on the books and articles of other journalists. And again, through omission and deliberate deliverance of some of these source materials, avoids grasping the thorny issues of deliberate state assassination, collusion and the British shoot to kill operations against ETB where Trigg, eyes wide shut, regurgitates British lies such as the SAS gave warnings, civilians were caught in the crossfire rather than deliberately targeted and wounded IRA Volunteers weren't dispatched on the ground. 

Many major engagements by the Brigade are also missing from the book. Trigg was also at pains to reinforce the British propaganda of certain attacks which everyone knows led to British fatalities that were never admitted. The shooting of two SAS soldiers in Cappagh is the most famous incident, leading to the verse in a popular rebel ballad "if your shot up in Cappagh it puzzles me, how you end up in a car crash in Germany." This continued denial rings hollow this week when it was revealed that British military casualties in the North during the war were actually over double the number originally revealed. These fatalities were conveniently attributed to car crashes and natural causes among other things. To believe that excuse you'd need to have come down the Lagan in a British propaganda bubble! 

The book meanwhile lacks proper footnoting and Trigg struggles to write in paragraphs, while half the book has no citations and lacks any statistics from the conflict. 

A book remains to be written on the long war in East Tyrone. Trigg's book is a missed opportunity in that regard. And whilst I know in Tyrone that Republicans are loath to engage with authors and journalists on such a project the sad reality is that in a generation or two those who know the truth will be dead and Trigg's book will, unfortunately, be the definitive account.

Jonathan Trigg, 2023, Death In The Fields: The IRA And East Tyrone. Merrion Press. ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1785374432.

⏩ Packy Carty is an East Tyrone Socialist Republican. 

4 comments:

  1. I'm reading this at the moment. It seemed to have the potential to be a Bandit Country type book, but hasn't quite pulled it off.

    On the plus side, it does go into a fair bit of detail about Jim Lynagh and the Loughall operation. There is much missing though - I felt Kevin Toolis in Rebel Hearts managed to get a deep dive into the Tyrone brigade in one of his chapters.

    There's some info about the campaign against security force contractors, but that subject which is dense with potential (so far about half way through the book) isn't deep dived.

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  2. Hardly going to "Shoot to Tickle" though are they?

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  3. Merrion Press tend to put out quality stuff so your critical review of this one Packy offers a worthwhile take. I am expecting a review copy through from the publisher.
    Past reading of some British Army conflict writing has left me sceptical about what they actually bring into the field of knowledge.

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  4. Packy
    Thanks for the review. You saved me a few bob as I had swithered about purchasing the book but given the author's history as a serving British soldier in the North I doubted that there would be any exposure of
    the dirty war against the ETB and the Tyrone community.
    Thanks for the confirmation.
    I agree that a book on the ETB is long overdue and would serve as a counterpoint to some of the dross spouted by the British propaganda machine. It could also serve as a tribute to all the brave volunteers of the ETB.

    A.M.
    I have been following the Quill since it's inception and I think the Book Review section is a quintessential part of the site The reviews of "Unffinished Business", "Say Nothing"," Up Like A Bird", "Heiress,Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber"2The Yank", and your own "Good Friday,The Death of Irish Republicanism" and many more add to the canon of modern Republican literature and have created entertaining,informative and mostly intelligent debate.

    P.S
    I have been tring to obtain G Magee's "Tyrone' s Struggle For Freedom Freedom" and Matt Treacy's "A Tunnel to The Moon". I've tried all the booksites without success, can any Quillers help.

    ReplyDelete