|
DEATH IN DERRY
Martin McGuinness and the Derry IRA's War Against the British.
Jonathan Trigg.
I was in the Army over thirty years and Derry was the most resentful place I ever served, even the dogs hated us.
When civil rights protests in the 1960s gave way to armed struggle, the Provisional IRA in Derry – both city and county – led the fight against the British security forces. In the city Martin McGuinness – a young butcher’s assistant from the Bogside – quickly rose through the ranks, launching a bombing campaign that reduced the city centre to rubble. In tandem, the IRA’s active service units fought the British Army in the streets and alleys of the Bogside, Creggan, Shantallow and the Waterside. Out in the townlands, a new generation from the county’s traditional republican families waged an equally ruthless war against their neighbours in the RUC and UDR. The Derry Brigade’s success would help propel McGuinness to the very top of the IRA’s Army Council.
By the early 1980s the Derry Brigade appeared untouchable. However, in reality, Special Branch and British Intelligence had infiltrated it from top to bottom and almost destroyed the brigade. By the mid-1990s its war was all but over, its ranks decimated by death and incarceration. This is the story of that war told by those from all sides who survived it.
Paperback • €18.99|£17.99 • 304 pages • 215mm x 135mm • 9781785375477
A lucid and absorbing account of one corner of the Troubles. Trigg is even-handed and never forgets the humanity, and sometimes the inhumanity, of participants. – Rory Carroll
Jon Trigg’s new book is essential reading on the Derry IRA’s long war. It offers unique personal testimonies on Martin McGuinness and the ruthlessness by which he and the Provisionals orchestrated their violent campaign against local civilians and the British security forces. A compelling study.– Aaron Edwards
Intelligent and forensic. Jon Trigg’s Death in Derry is a must-read for all those interested in Ireland’s most recent conflict.’
– Richard O'Rawe
No comments