Behind the Mask: The IRA and Sinn Fein - Softcover

Taylor, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1575000776 ISBN 13: 9781575000770

Publisher: TV Books, 1999

Synopsis

Over the past twenty-five years, more than three thousand people have died as the IRA fought to force the British government out of Ireland. Peter Taylor brings us the extraordinary story of The Troubles that have ravaged Northern Ireland through his unprecedented access to IRA members and documents and Irish and British soldiers, politicians, and eyewitnesses. From the Easter rising in 1916 to the ceasefire in effect today, the history and politics of the conflict are laid out here with deadly clarity.
Once jailed as terrorists, IRA leaders now have been feted at the White House, elected to Parliament in London, and even shared in the Nobel Peace Prize. In this brilliant account, Behind the Mask brings us up to date on one of the world's most enduring conflicts, now on the verge of resolution with the historic 1998 Peace Accord.

About this title

Review

The violent struggles of Northern Ireland have consumed journalist Peter Taylor since his first assignment there in 1972. One fateful day, "Bloody Sunday," 14 unarmed men were gunned down by British paratroopers; this was the turning point in Taylor's journalistic career, inspiring him to make 50 documentaries and write five books on the troubled nation. Behind the Mask, his sixth, is a provocative foray into the organization so synonymous with violence: the Irish Republican Army and its political wing of Sinn Fein. Based on one of Taylor's television documentaries shown in both the United Kindom and the United States, he was given unprecedented access to members of the Republican movement--a rare journalistic feat. Taylor describes the interviews as "intense, often emotional and remarkably frank."

From his interviews with dozens of I.R.A. and Sinn Fein members (including some confessed killers), Taylor gained fascinating insight into the movement's past, present, and future goals. The I.R.A. is certainly not portrayed in a heroic light; Taylor is graphic in the descriptions of atrocities such as Enniskillen and the Harrods bombing. But the I.R.A. and Sinn Fein are given a voice, and readers may draw their own conclusions. Behind the Mask is an important book for those who want a better understanding of the conflict that has ripped Northern Ireland apart.

Review

The book tracks the I.R.A. from a time when it considered its war to be winnable to an interim period when it combined the tactics of politcs and terror.... Taylor doesn't try to examine the psychology of those who took up the gun, but he does capture the inevitability of that destiny for so many young Catholics growing up in the dreary housing projects of Belfast. -- The New York Times Book Review

Edition details

• Publisher: TV Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1575000776
• ISBN 13: 9781575000770
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 460