The Sorrow & the Loss

Brandon Sullivan 🔖 with a review of the latest work from Martin Dillon.

Introduction

In preparation for writing this review, I thought back to 2003 when I read Martin Dillon’s previous book The Trigger Men. Back then, I seriously rated Dillon as an investigative journalist and an author. I had first read The Shankill Butchers when I was in my late teens, and it provoked a strength and depth of feelings about the conflict that simply weren’t there beforehand. The historian and writer Gareth Mulvenna wrote that after he read The Shankill Butchers book it felt like someone poured “toxic glue” in his brains. That accurately summaries how I felt. The book retains the capacity to shock, disturb, and infuriate.

But one thing it did to me was inspire me to seek out all of Dillon’s books, which I did, one by one. With the exception of his biography on Blair Mayne, I have read all of Martin Dillon’s non-fiction books, and one of his novels, The Serpent’s Tail. The novel was good, I have to say, one of the better ‘Troubles” novels that I have read. Although, I read it some time ago and may think differently now. Yes, Quillers, at one point in time, I would have emphatically agreed with the late Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien, who described Martin Dillon as "our Virgil to that Inferno.”

Dillon’s book on the Butchers was the first that I read about loyalism. The Dirty War (1990) also shocked me – in my late teens and early 20s, I was still really quite naïve about the nature of state violence. My first doubt about Dillon’s take on historical matters came about when I was reading 25 Years of Terror: The IRA's War Against the British (1996). Dillon wrote that at the time of the 1994 ceasefire, the IRA had never been so dangerous. This just didn’t ring true to me, and I wondered why an author of Dillon’s pedigree had written such a thing. But, I didn’t dwell on it, and in 2003 bought a copy of The Trigger Men, a hardback copy, such was my eagerness to get it. I was disappointed that the chapters on Lenny Murphy and Michael Stone were basically lifted from his previous books. And I questioned his assertion that Johnny Adair was “Officer Commanding” the UFF across Northern Ireland. It appeared that Dillon had bought into the hype that Adair created for himself. Dillon’s work had to a significant degree inspired me to seek out more historical inquiry about the Troubles. But at a certain point, his books no longer informed me, and increasingly led to frustration and irritation. I had, basically, moved on.

Other than Crossing the Line, his patchy but at times fascinating memoir in 2017, this is Dillon’s first book in more than 20 years. Quite an event. As part of the PR Blitz, Dillon appeared on a number of podcasts. On one, The Good Listener which is hosted by the affable Irish man John Hadden, Dillon got combative when asked about an actor’s portrayal of the late IRA Belfast Brigade commander, Brendan Hughes, and on some other occasions. Hadden did well to temper Dillon’s bolshiness. My own research and writing has put me in touch with a range of people well-informed about book releases and promotional activities, and so it was that I actually knew of an interview Dillon did with the wife of a former prominent paramilitary. The interview participant withdrew her consent for Dillon to use the interview. In my opinion, in one podcast, Dillon gave enough information about this woman’s husband to identify her. I thought it was quite a shoddy thing to have done. I also have it on good authority, as they say, that Dillon backed out of a podcast which would have involved a well-regarded author and expert on loyalism who just happened to have published respectful and constructive criticism, alongside a high degree of praise, of Dillon’s work interviewing him.

So, these were the circumstances leading up to me receiving a copy of the book for review. For full disclosure, I have tried to contact Martin Dillon, inviting him to comment on the reappraisal of his Shankill Butchers book which I have been co-authoring. Thus far, I haven’t heard anything back. I would be nothing but respectful if he were to get in touch.

Other books about women in the Troubles

Dillon accurately identified a gap in the market in writing a book centred on women’s voices. But this is not the first. 40 years ago, a remarkable book titled Only the rivers run free : Northern Ireland, the women's war was published, written by Eileen Fairweather. I highly recommend this as a document of a time and a place. It is not, however, free from error. I am dubious about some of the book’s claims about the identify of “Captain Black”, for example. There is also Sisters in Cells by Áine and Eibhlín Níc Giolla. And, of course, much work exists on the Price sisters.

The Book

The book is a collection of chapters each centred around a woman who had some significance in the conflict. There are strong stories, and Dillon is clearly a skilled interviewer. I was eager to read the chapter featuring Tracy Coulter, the ex-partner of the UDA killer Stevie McKeag. I was not surprised to learn that McKeag was extremely violent and controlling towards his female partners, but was surprised to learn that at UDA meetings the young McKeag would openly threaten the life of his partner’s father, Jackie Coulter, himself a senior UDA man. I think this would be the equivalent of a member of an IRA ASU threatening a member of Northern Command at an IRA meeting. That was an extraordinary insight into the UDA. But I felt that the compromised the chapter by using a recollection from Tracy about a ruckus in her family home when she was a child. A drunk Catholic man had gotten lost and broke into the Coulter family home where Jackie Coulter chased him. The book reports that Jackie walked the man to the Springfield Road, where he lived. This brought to mind a recollection from a son of Tucker Lyttle, who walked in on his father and some other men beating an unfortunate man they had tied to a chair. I have trouble believing the account Tracy gave, though that may well be her recollection, but I wonder if Dillon questioned it. I find it difficult to believe that a Catholic man would break into a UDA brigadier’s house or, if he did, that he would survive it.

The book is weak on factual details as it contains some blatant errors, but strong on personal reflections. For example, he mentions the IRA’s Northern Command existed in the early 1970s, when it had not in fact the IRA did not create it till much later. But then again, the reflections of the widow of a soldier killed by the IRA were poignant and important. Many hundreds of families on mainland Britain suffered bereavement because of the conflict, and we have not heard their voices very much.

An academic shared with me inaccuracies he uncovered on the chapter about the IRA member Martina Anderson. He asked me not to name him. I have not given the full list:

She was arrested the first time in 1980 and hid in Donegal and then got arrested in 1985. Here is what Dillon wrote:

After she fled Derry, she vanished from the Special Branch radar and was not seen again until she was apprehended fourteen years later, on 24 June 1985, in a flat in Glasgow.

If she had been missing for 14 years, she would've been 9 when she went to Donegal!

He then writes:

Martina Anderson was a seasoned operative, having been in Britain for years according to Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism experts. (184)

How could she have been in Scotland for years if she was hiding in Donegal as he claims McGuinness told her to go into hiding in Donegal!? (179)

And so it goes. This isn’t a bad book, but it is a frustrating one. Dillon’s pedigree is such many will consider his work the final word. I was certainly someone who was in that school of thought, and it is therefore a pity that inaccuracies sit alongside fascinating stories and personal insights. Worth a read, but buy it second-hand.

Conclusion

Alongside the praise from Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien which I quoted at the beginning of this review is a vignette from The Irish Times which hailed Martin Dillon as "one of the most creative writers of our time.” I think that this compliment may prove to be unintentionally accurate and we should no longer consider it praise for an investigative journalist and historian.

Martin Dillon, 2025. The Sorrow and the Loss: The Tragic Shadow Cast by the Troubles on the Lives of Women. Merrion Press. ISBN-13: ‎978-1785375415.

⏩Brandon Sullivan is a middle-aged West Belfast émigré. He juggles fatherhood & marriage with working in a policy environment and writing for TPQ about the conflict, films, books, and politics.